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587psv
|
where do dns resolutions physically occur?
|
My understanding is that once you have a registered domain name, people can type that domain name in, it goes out and gets resolved to your external IP address and then gets sent to your modem or firewall or whatever the IP address actually is. so when I register _URL_0_ to my IP address and you type it in, where is the hardware that converts _URL_1_ to my IP address?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/587psv/eli5_where_do_dns_resolutions_physically_occur/
|
{
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6
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"text": [
"Could be any computer on the Internet. If you haven't specifically configured anything, then your computer is likely using the DNS servers your Internet Service Provider told it about when the computer connected to the Internet. If that's the case, the computers will probably be located in a server room run by your ISP. Google also runs a set of DNS servers (with the easy to remember addresses of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)- if you use those, your computer will be querying servers in the nearest Google data center.",
"DNS relies heavily on publicly available \"namespace\" servers. These servers are provided by a number of domain hosts (i.e. godaddy, enom, network solutions, etc) and ISP's (comcast, att, chater and so on..). \n\nWhen you register a domain name \"_URL_1_\" with a Domain host, you are basically saying that you own this organization and know where it is. \n\nSo, lets say you update your DNS host to point \"www.domain .com\" to *arbitrary ip address\". Once that namespace server updates it's records, it begins to propagate that information to other namespace servers that are publicly available on the web. \n\nLet's go further to say that after propagation completes, im sitting at home and type in \"_URL_0_\" into my browser. My computer/tablet/whatever calls out to the DNS server listed in my local ip settings (usually the local home router) and asks \"whats the ip for \"_URL_0_\"?\". My router, being a run of the mill consumer router that doesnt have a built in DNS server, then calls out to the DNS server that IT has in IT'S ip configuration (which is provided by your ISP or could possibly be a static entry you programmed in.. I like to use google,s DNS 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.2.2). So it passes that request on up to a public DNS server that would have received the propagated information we talked about earlier. \n\nThat public DNS server then responds saying \"oh, i know where that is... it's *arbitrary ip address *\". That response is sent back to your device and your laptop/tablet/whatever goes on it's merry way to it's destination. \n\nIts nothing more than a series of requests and responses between your devices and internal or public namespace servers. You can of course host your own internal DNS server that receives public information. You can even create custom, internal namrspaces (domains) that will only resolve in your network. \n\nThis is a simple breakdown, but theres more to it.. \n\nAlso, DNS is actually kind of horribly insecure and *imo* is due for some type of overhaul... but thats just my two cents."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"www.mediocredditor.com",
"mediocreredditor.com"
] |
[
[],
[
"www.domain.com",
"domain.com"
]
] |
|
2om9sn
|
how do we receive information from space probes, like the one visiting pluto?
|
The "New Horizon" space probe has just come out of hibernation and will reach Pluto in 2015. With this, we can now, again, communicate with New Horizon and will eventually get photos. How does this happen? Are there special space radio waves? Is the probe some kind of mega gamma ray transmitter? Do we ever miss messages we think should be there? Does the Mars Rover communicate in the same way? Enquiring minds and all, whut whut.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2om9sn/eli5_how_do_we_receive_information_from_space/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmohrsh"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
" > Are there special space radio waves?\n\nNot really. Just carefully directed normal radio waves. There are certain bands of the radio frequency spectrum that are well suited for space communication, but a lot of that is because we humans on earth are remarkably noisy in other spectra (e.g. with our cell phones and our music).\n\n > Is the probe some kind of mega gamma ray transmitter?\n\nNope.\n\n > Do we ever miss messages we think should be there?\n\nSure. Take the Pathfinder mission on Mars, for example. Three months into its one-month mission it sent a signal that we didn't receive, or we sent a signal that it didn't receive, and neither side managed to establish communication with it since then. \n\n > Does the Mars Rover communicate in the same way?\n\nYes. Pretty much all communication between spacecraft is done with radio waves. Many craft will have a high-gain antenna that looks like a satellite dish (which is also a high gain antenna, as it happens.... it's used for communicating with satellites), and a low-gain antenna that looks like a pole. High-gain antennae are nice because they can use less power to send the same signal and can pick up a weaker signal, but they have to be pointed in just the right direction. Low-gain antennae are nice because they can be pointed pretty much any direction (although some are better than others—if you have an RC car and you want to get better signal then you should point the antenna 90 degrees away from the car, not directly at it). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3u6bx0
|
why is rhonda rosey getting so much hate?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u6bx0/eli5_why_is_rhonda_rosey_getting_so_much_hate/
|
{
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"cxca2yf"
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"text": [
"From u/FractalJaguar \n\nIt is easy to like a dominant fighter, and Ronda Rousey used her Olympic level judo to beat all of her opponents to great effect. The statistics speak for themselves. She won her first three amateur fights by armbar in the first round. Then she proceeded to win her first seven professional fights in the exact same fashion; an armbar in the first round. I haven't checked, but I'm 99.99% sure that no other fighter has dominated in such a way (same technique, same round).\n\nThen she fought Miesha Tate for the second time, who managed to make it to the third round with Ronda, but still lost by armbar. Her next four fights she won in the first round with a variety of finishes (KO (punches), another armbar, KO (punch), and a knee to the body).\n\nShe was always a rather fierce character, as you might expect from an elite fighter. She didn't mince words, she was outspoken, brash, etc. And all this time, she was really paving the way for women in MMA. She was a big draw. I for one, as a former judoka, loved seeing such high level judo in MMA. It was awesome to watch.\n\nNow to the casual observer, this is amazing to watch and read about. A fighter, dominating in such a way, with 75% of her victories with an armbar and 92% of them in the first round. That kind of prowess attracts attention in any sport.\n\nAnd thus a hype machine was born. The UFC promoted her more than almost any other fighter at the time. Due to being paid proportionally to how much money she brought in to the UFC (revenue at the gate and in PPV buys), she was the highest paid fighter in the UFC. She was a Big Deal.\n\nBut to the more hardcore fans, such as those of us in /r/mma, there were aspects that went largely unnoticed. Chief amongst them: her division (bantamweight) was weak. The combined record of her opponents at one point was something like 1-7. Most champions will fight fighters coming off a winning streak, with mostly wins on their record. But there simply weren't (and still aren't) many female mixed martial artists at a high level at the time. Rousey was an Olympian, with a strong work ethic and a desire to win, and she climbed to the top, but arguably it was a relatively shallow climb.\n\nAs for why she is facing such a backlash now, in the last year or two she was getting extremely arrogant. All elite fighters have confidence in spades and the mental aspect of combat sports is paramount. You have to believe you're going to win. But there is a very fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Rousey went deep into arrogance. She got too big for her boots, was apparently surrounded by yes men, was told that she had 'elite boxing skills' to go along with her judo... people got swept up in the hype around her and I think she did too. She was in movies, countless interviews on television, etc etc... it must be hard not to let all of that get to you.\n\nSo by the time she fought Holly Holm, she was saying things like \"I believe I can beat anyone in my division with one hand\". Arrogance. And yes, you can argue she's just talking smack and trying to hype the fight to get more buys... but personally, I don't think so. I think she got swept up in the hype. Being told your boxing skills are elite when you're about to fight perhaps the best female boxer ever..! Some of the video footage of her shadow boxing in particular drew great criticism. On the pads she looked a bit sharper and faster, but in the Octagon it was never crisp and clean. Her win against Bethe Correia (supposedly a hard hitter who frequently won by punches), was essentially just her charging Correia down, eating a few punches, pinning her to the cage wall, and overwhelming her. There was no finesse, no head movement, no neat footwork or evasion. Bethe wasn't actually a hard hitter, and Ronda just ate those punches, apparently because she wanted to prove that she wasn't just a one trick pony. Not exactly champion level tactics.\n\nI don't think people 'hated her all along'. I for one liked watching her fight at the start. But as her personality started to show and her arrogance grew, it was harder and harder to like her. It was also hard to hear people talk about her like she was some kind of god, when under the surface you could see that she wasn't as great as she was being made out to be. And it was oh so satisfying to see such a masterful fighter like Holm dominate her completely and knock her out in such a spectacular fashion, ending her reign and proving just that.\n\nTL;DR everyone loves to see arrogance fall off their high horse.\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
lppsp
|
inception
|
What the hell happens in this movie?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lppsp/eli5_inception/
|
{
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"c2ulq3x",
"c2ulvmy",
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5
],
"text": [
"Have you ever had a dream, SonoftheMOrning, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? What if you could dream WITHIN your dream? What if you could dream within your dream WITHIN your dream?",
"The conceit of the movie is that it's possible to interact with someone while they're dreaming. The conceit that builds on that is that if someone *dreams that he falls asleep*, it's possible for there to be a dream within a dream, and the same conceit applies: It's possible to interact with that person while he is dreaming his dream-within-a-dream.\n\nBeyond that, it's a straight-up caper.",
"Have you ever had a dream, SonoftheMOrning, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? What if you could dream WITHIN your dream? What if you could dream within your dream WITHIN your dream?",
"The conceit of the movie is that it's possible to interact with someone while they're dreaming. The conceit that builds on that is that if someone *dreams that he falls asleep*, it's possible for there to be a dream within a dream, and the same conceit applies: It's possible to interact with that person while he is dreaming his dream-within-a-dream.\n\nBeyond that, it's a straight-up caper."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
aaiqo0
|
why is there so much trash in the ocean? are transport ships that sloppy? or where does it all come from? and why haven't we figured out a way to stop it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaiqo0/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_trash_in_the_ocean_are/
|
{
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2,
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"text": [
"It isn't coming from ships. The vast majority comes from the land because water picks trash up and carries it downhill. All the runoff from the land goes into rivers, and ultimately those rivers then go into the oceans. Trash on land ends up in rivers which ends up in the ocean.",
"It's hard for things to get out of the ocean.\n\nThe wrapper you drop on the floor keeps flying around until rains and the water takes it into a stream or creek. The stream and creek flows into a river, taking all the rubbish with them. The rivers end up in the ocean, taking all the rubbish with them.\n\nSo more or less: Once something has become wet it end up in the ocean.",
"In the developed world garbage is largely disposed of by burning or burying in a landfill - both of which prevent the trash from entering the ocean. However, in the undeveloped world trash is largely disposed of by dumping it into a river, which then washes it out into the ocean.\n\nThe Pacific Ocean is particularly dirty because there are a bit over two billion people living in South East Asia where dumping trash into a river is the primary means of disposal - and all of that ends up in Pacific.\n\nWe do know how to stop it - the amount of trash entering the ocean from developed nations is negligible due to how trash is disposed of in those countries. The problem is that its *much* cheaper to just dump garbage in a river and undeveloped nations generally don't have enough money or concern to properly dispose of their garbage.",
"There's a lot of bad reporting out there on the Great Pacific garbage patch and what causes it. \n\nThe majority of it is broken fishing gear. About 20% of it is debris from the Japanese tsunami of 2011. Much of the rest is trash and industrial debris from West Pacific developing nations. Almost none of it is from developed countries like the United States, where ocean garbage dumping has been banned for decades.\n\nPeople also wildly overestimate the *amount* of plastic that's out there, believing it's a solid raft of garbage stretching for thousands of miles. In reality, there are about 10-100 kg of plastic per square kilometer of ocean, which means every football-field sized region has a couple large pieces, a bucketful at the most.\n\nI don't want to minimize the problem, this is a serious ecological issue. But the usual focus of news stories about the Garbage Patch is, \"what can YOU do to stop it?\" The answer is, not much unless you're a Japanese fisherman or an Indonesian solid waste manager.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-garbage-patch-plastics-environment/",
"https://www.epa.gov/ocean-dumping/learn-about-ocean-dumping",
"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w"
]
] |
||
8ooo5j
|
if the blood glucose level falls below the threshold while exercising, will the body instantly starts burning fat?
|
Or the body will collapse?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ooo5j/eli5_if_the_blood_glucose_level_falls_below_the/
|
{
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"e04ytoc",
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4,
2
],
"text": [
"It won't start immediately, there's a delay b4 your organism sends the message & receives it where it counts. That's why people can faint from hypoglycemia + sudden effort",
"yes eventually but your body has a specific chain of events. \n\nYou use ATP in the first 3-5 seconds, then creatine phosphate for the next 5 or so seconds. This is anaerobic exercise, and it uses glucose inefficiently. The liver helps recycle the glucose. \n\nNext you switch to burning glucose aerobically using your mitochondria. This kicks in after a few minutes. To fuel that, your body will use up glycogen supplies (mostly) from your muscle and liver. That lasts for 2 hours or so. After 2 hours, you actually start burning fat in significan amounts. Fat is used as an energy source in the form of ketone bodies instead of glucose, to maintain glucose levels. Glucose can't be restored using fat. \n\nFat can be converted to ketone bodies, but not back to glucose unfortunately. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6jbu9c
|
why is inflammation from exercise healthy but inflammation caused by certain foods unhealthy?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jbu9c/eli5_why_is_inflammation_from_exercise_healthy/
|
{
"a_id": [
"djd3ate",
"djdgi4h"
],
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3,
2
],
"text": [
"Exercise ideally causes strain and tiny tears in your muscle fibres and cells like scar tissue that becomes part of the muscle itself. They'e designed to adapt to the strain like that. Inflammation is another ballpark. If you put too much strain on your organs by giving them too much salt, sugar, alcohol and non agreeable amounts of other various chemicals to process, you can get a myriad of health issues and your organs and tissues being inflamed will be a symptom of these issues. ",
"Inflammation is a physiological response to tissue damage irrespective of the causing agent which can be a number of things from trauma to infection. The cascade of events of the inflammatory process is complex but the main idea is to facilitate and promote healing of the damaged tissue and it's an essential feature of the human body to keep things in equilibrium. There is no good or bad inflamation (generally speaking) it's just a side effect, a natural response of the body."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4zh2va
|
in the harambe situation why did they shoot him instead of like a tranquilizer dart as you see in movies all the time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zh2va/eli5_in_the_harambe_situation_why_did_they_shoot/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6vr6b8"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"These darts take time to work. Until they take effect, the animal is not tranquilized, and is angry (having just been shot with a dart) and therefore could be dangerous."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2z5k6r
|
if mercury is at a temperature where it's solid, would it be tough like steel or brittle like ice?
|
Actually, explain like I'm 4...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z5k6r/eli5_if_mercury_is_at_a_temperature_where_its/
|
{
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"cpgb0pp"
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"score": [
224,
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20,
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2,
2,
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4,
2
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"text": [
"Mercury is extremely brittle when in solid form. In general mercury based compounds and materials will tend to be brittle due to the fact that mercury does not like bonding with other atoms or molecules. This means that mercury bonds tend to be quite weak and as a result, easy to pull apart.\n\nThe reason for said resistance to bonding is that mercury electronic configuration is very stable and as such any removal or addition of electrons (which are required for bonds) requires high amounts of energy which is normally not available or will be reversed when outside the conditions that allowed it to happen in the first place.\n\nIncidentally this lack of ease to form bonds is part of the reason why mercury is liquid at room temperature in the first place.",
"Not a direct answer, but I feel like it will ELI5 lots of cool parts about mercury better than I could explain, [this playlist](_URL_0_) is a dude doing a whole bunch of different experiments with mercury. There are questions answered about mercury I didn't even know I had!",
"Mercury is quite brittle when solid, but that's only when very cold.\n\nLike all metals, it softens relatively close to its melting point. So, if you freeze a bar of mercury with dry ice, it is only about 50C colder than it's melting point, and it is very soft - With gloves, you could take a pencil size bar of frozen mercury and tie it in a knot. I've previously done this as a demonstration.",
"Have you seen Terminator 2?",
"Steel can become very brittle as well depending on tempering",
"I feel really stupid because for about 10 seconds I was like omg you idiot planets are pretty strong....",
"I can't comment on mercury, but I'd like to point out that tough and brittle are not opposite ends of the same spectrum.\n\nStrength is the ability to withstand an applied load without failure. Ductility is the ability to deform under tensile stress (brittle means *not ductile*). Toughness is the ability to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing, which requires a combination of strength and ductility.",
"Totally thought you were talking about the planet.",
"Mercury is strong independent woman who don't need no man. When she gets into a solid relationship with a man, it's pretty fragile and breaks off easily.\n\nActual ELI5."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL786EBDC8D2B4CD1D"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1r6c3c
|
how can the feds and irs raid denver-area marijuana dispensaries and grow operations if it is legal within the state of colorado?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r6c3c/eli5_how_can_the_feds_and_irs_raid_denverarea/
|
{
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"In short because it is a federal law and federal law applies to all states. Now, the argument can be made that the federal government does not have the Constitutional authority to have such a law (I would guess it would be argued as a violation of the 9th amendment). If a case related to this law went to the Supreme Court they could potentially rule the federal law unconstitutional thus rendering it null.",
"A number of various ways\n\n * They can raid them because of not having the proper permits\n\n * They can raid them if they have cause to beleive they are dealing more than just pot\n\n* They can raid them if they believe they are in possession of stolen goods/weapons\n",
"They are legal in Colorado, but not in the *US*. It's a dispute over jurisdiction."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1vxeb0
|
punctuation in and around quotation marks.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vxeb0/eli5_punctuation_in_and_around_quotation_marks/
|
{
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"cewp4h7",
"cewp5oa"
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2,
5
],
"text": [
"For dialogue, punctuation should almost always be contained within the quotation marks. Other uses are not grammatical per se, but stylistic. ",
"If whatever you're quoting has a period, like an entire sentence, then the period goes inside. \n\n\"I'm going to procrastinate during finals week.\"\n\nIf it's just a phrase, NOT a whole sentence, then it's outside. \n\nThis thesis is supported by his claim that \"the Earth revolves around the sun\". \n\nFor above, assume that the sentence you're quoting does not end with 'sun', but goes on. \n\nEdit: Line breaks"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
24d1hw
|
how do ram drives work, and if they are so fast, why don't they replace ssds and hdds?
|
I was reading up a bit on [Dimmdrive](_URL_0_) and was interested a bit more in this topic, but there doesnt seem to be much information available on the internet. Explain like i'm someone with a basic understanding of computers.
Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24d1hw/eli5_how_do_ram_drives_work_and_if_they_are_so/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chf6clp",
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4
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"text": [
"Hey there!\n\nI'm the owner of the _URL_0_ software, so hopefully I can help clear some things up! \n\nThere have been some really good explanations in this post so far, so I'm going to build on top of what others have said as well as add a few things myself.\n\n**What is a Ram Drive**\n\nSimply put, a Ram Drive is a file system that is identified to your OS as a hard drive, but utilizes the intense speed that RAM operates at to create that hard drive with speed benefits that are insanely faster than a normal hard drive.\n\nRemember back when a PC had a single hard drive for the OS, games, programs, everything? Back then you could expect something like 20-50MB/s from your disk, possibly less, depending on how active your OS, AV, etc. was. \n\nNow imagine you are playing a game that has 2GB of data files on that 20-50MB disk. You'll notice that game takes *forever* to load, and that in-game animations, cut-scenes, level-loads, etc., are slow as balls. 2,000 MB divided by 50MB = 40 seconds. That sucks!\n\nNow introduce SSDs into the scene. That 2GB game asset, on a ~250MB/s SSD, now takes just 8 seconds to load. AWESOME!\n\nNow let's take into account games that are 10-20GB in size. That 250MB/s SSD now can take 80 seconds to load all those asset. That sucks. Even a 500MB/s SSD takes 40 seconds. Sucky.\n\nNow take a look at Dimmdrive, which goes as fast as your technical hardware can allow. I personally get about 9,000 MB/s and have had users peaking at 13,000 MB/s. Imagine that 20GB game loading at 10GB/s. 2 seconds VS 40 on that top end SSD. \n\n**Why do those speeds matter?**\n\nIf you have a SSD and are playing solitaire, those speeds won't matter whatsoever. \n\nIf you have a top end SSD and are playing Skyrim w/all the HD graphic packs, expansions, everything, then having a 9,000MB/s disk makes the game immensely more fun, very smooth, eliminates those long loading screens, etc.\n\nThe higher tech a game is, with larger graphic textures and overall demands on your PC, the more benefit you'll obtain from a ramdisk. This is where a ramdrive is very, very, very useful.\n\n**Final Thoughts**\n\nIt really boils down to how much you value you PC gaming experience, or really any PC experience. \n\nIf you want top notch performance, you generally buy the latest CPU, the fastest GPU, the biggest monitor, etc. Having a super fast hard drive such as Dimmdrive's ramdisk, is just another piece of the puzzle with the end result giving you an awesome experience. If you're going to spend $300-$1000 for hardware components, spending a few bucks on a ramdisk, for those enthusiasts, seems to be a no brainer.",
"RAM is very fast but requires constant power to continue to store data. SSDs and HDDs are slower (HDDs especially so) but retain data when unpowered.\n\nMost computers store programs and data that need to persist when turned off in a file system on a HDD or a SSD. A file system is a set of rules about how data should be stored, labeled, retrieved, and organized.\n\nA Ram drive is just a file system stored in RAM. It can use your existing RAM (but lose all data when power is lost) or it can be a physical card with a battery and its own sticks of RAM. You can read and write files to it just like you do your HDD or SSD.\n\nThe program you linked is likely terrible. While loading game data from a RAM drive will be fast, you have to load the data *into the RAM drive* every time you restart your computer. You effectively have to load the game twice. You also lose the RAM you dedicate to the Dimmdrive, so your OS won't be able to manage this memory as well."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://dimmdrive.com/"
] |
[
[
"http://Dimmdrive.com"
],
[]
] |
|
7uhbx6
|
how do wifi speeds get split between 5ghz and 2.4ghz networks? let’s say i have a total connection of 100mb/s, and 5g gets 100 and 2.4g gets 25. if i’m downloading something at 50, will the 2.4 speed still be 25 or will it be halved?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7uhbx6/eli5_how_do_wifi_speeds_get_split_between_5ghz/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dtkbcuc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You generally connect to 5g or 2.4g, not both. Your device and the way decide which is best.\nThroughput is affect by MANY variables.\nBoth 5g and 2.4g will share the same 100 pipe.\nYour actual download speed is variable also and often limited by the server you are downloading from.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
23wd6d
|
why do our ears get plugged on flights or in cars?
|
Also, is there any "ideal way" to rid yourselves of the problem? Chewing gum never worked for me.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23wd6d/eli5_why_do_our_ears_get_plugged_on_flights_or_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ch17ake",
"ch17bb3",
"ch18ru8"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"it's because of changes in pressure, normally if it's in a car it's from either going up or downhill rapidly and your body doesn't normalize the pressure.\n\nA solution that may work for you, plug your nose take a deep breath shut your mouth and slowly \"breathe out\" but don't actually let the air out of your closed mouth, you should feel some pushing on your ears it's a bit odd to do the first time but it does work for me",
"Difference in air pressure. I equalize pressure by pinching my nose\nshut and GENTLY putting pressure (blowing) a little air against the pinched\nnose.",
"The inner ear is separated from your outer ear canal (the part you can get to with a Q-tip) by your ear drum. (outer ear - > eardrum - > middle ear - > inner ear) Air pressure differences - especially rapid ones like driving up/down a steep slope or changing altitude in an airplane create an imbalance in air pressure between your outer ear canal and your middle/inner ear. A rapid, severe enough change could permanently damage your ear drum.\n\nThis is where the [Eustachian tube](_URL_0_) comes in. Think of it as a pipe made of bone and muscle with a one-way valve at one end that acts like a pressure valve whose purpose is to equalize air pressure in the middle ear with the ambient air pressure so the eardrum isn't damaged. One end is in your middle ear, the other at your nasopharynx - located in your nasal cavity.\n\nThe Eustachian tube also serves to drain mucus from your middle ear. So if you have an ear infection or a head cold it can get \"plugged up\" and that's why things sound \"funny\" when you're sick; it's the difference in outer / middle ear pressure that is changing the tonal quality your eardrum is transmitting to your inner ear.\n\nChewing gum is commonly recommended because you're moving a lot of your facial muscles around and that sometimes helps if your Eustachian tubes are \"plugged\" for some reason.\n\nCanaderino and HirudinaeVicis' solutions work but be **very** gentle until you get the hang of it. You could possibly force too much of a change and damage your eardrum. Practice it enough and you can do it without needing to hold your nose... it's kinda like whistling - hard to explain but once you figure it out it's easy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachian_tube"
]
] |
|
3pcmjs
|
how do fetus's in eggs, say chickens, get enough energy to replicate all its cells and grow from just a few cells to a breathing animal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pcmjs/eli5_how_do_fetuss_in_eggs_say_chickens_get/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cw53wuj"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"That is what the yolk is for. The yolk is packed full of everything a developing foetus needs to grow. It serves roughly the same purpose as the placenta in mammals. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
467xml
|
how are some albums "mastered for itunes"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/467xml/eli5_how_are_some_albums_mastered_for_itunes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d033tsd",
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"d039nn6"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Mastered for iTunes is essentially a set of guidelines for peeps (primarily mastering engineers) to follow... it recommends a preferred format for submitting \"higher fidelity\" music to iTunes (currently 256k aac, v lossy but hey).\n\nIt's a bit of a marketing tool IMO, but it'll pave the way for Apple to push full lossless music delivery in the future... some kind of hd-acc format apparently.\n",
"You know how a photo can be high resolution or low resolution? For a photo that means the same image has more or less detail in it making the file larger or smaller. \n\nThe same can be done to audio files. \"Mastered for iTunes\" tracks are a higher resolution than albums that arent. The cost of this is larger file size. \"Mastering\" in this case is the final editing process for a music track before it becomes a \"CD\" track or an \"MP3\" track or \"vinyl\" track. A \"Mastered for iTunes\" track meets a specific \"resolution\" higher than Apple's minimum standard.\n\nIt should be noted for pop music (by that I'm including of the purposes of this thread Rock, Hip Hop, EDM, and anything that's not classical music or jazz) it will be very difficult for you to tell the difference, especially if you are listening with regular iPod earbuds. [Here's a test](_URL_0_) you can take to see if you hear the difference.",
"It has to do with standardization of audio quality, but mostly it is an example of the Apple reality distortion field. Great marketing.",
"Actually this topic brings up a question I always wondered about. Some songs have... a weird sound to them at certain parts. Usually when they enunciate the \"S\" sound, is this caused by the mastering/mixing process? It sounds like a whistle or... something like that I've heard it on a wide range of headphones. From earbuds, to speakers, to the radio in my car, to 300 dollar sound systems. It seems totally random which song will have it and which will not. ",
"Mastered for iTunes is a set of guidelines that seek to enhance the quality of digital music by\n\n* Setting standards such that a digital file will sound \"good\" in a wide variety of playback settings, including Headphones, bluetooth speakers, car audio, and other common modern-day playback settings.\n\n* Discouraging \"loudness\" and clipping by mandating an expectation that Apple's Sound Check algorithm will be used to manage overall loudness, allowing the mastering engineer to focus on dynamic range and intended expression.",
"Everyone in the thread is currently wrong about what mastered for iTunes actually is. MFiT is not delivery format other than the sample rate recommendations. Delivery to iTunes of the masters is still uncompressed wav or aiff files but you pull your masters down by about 1 dB before submitting so that Apple's conversion algorithm to aac doesn't create peaks in the program material that reach 0 dBFS. The reason for this is that converting from a lossless format like wav to a lossy format like mp3 or aac will cause some distortion, especially in the higher frequencies. This distortion will increase the amplitude of the waveforms in the file so if the master submitted is at -0.1 dBFS and you convert to aac, the file will clip at 0 dbFS and cause audible distortion. This is why they want people to pull their masters down. The other thing they recommend is uploading files at a higher sample rate than 44.1 because their conversion algorithm allegedly causes less distortion with a more gentle nyquist filter.\nApple has a mastering toolkit that you download which includes a meter that will show you the exact number of times a file clips, and the exact number of times the file has an inter-sample clip. On the other side of the application you see real time metering of how many clips and inter-sample clips the file will have after Apple's conversion to aac is done to the file. This way you can see exactly how much you need to pull your master down to prevent clipping that will happen after the conversion process.\nThe toolkit also has a droplet application which is the exact algorithm Apple uses to convert your masters to aac, so you drop a wav or aiff file onto the droplet app and it spits out an aac that will sound identical to the master that will end up on iTunes. The toolkit also includes a blind A/B testing utility that will score you to see if you can hear the difference between files without confirmation bias.\nMFiT is actually a great tool for engineers to help prevent distortion that would otherwise be out of their control since Apple does the conversion to aac, not the mastering engineer.\nThe problem with the MFiT tag is that the conversion process is all automated on Apple's end, so you can actually submit files that clip at 0 dBFS before the conversion and still end up with the MFiT tag in the iTunes store. You can basically submit anything and say you mastered it for iTunes and they will still give you the tag. It is ultimately up to the A & R's to have the responsibility to not submit their projects to iTunes at -0.1 but most of them still will anyway because they don't understand this stuff.",
"I think there are some misconceptions here. Mastering is the art of tweaking the sound based on the delivery format from the initial mix set out by the producers. Vinyl will have a different sound profile than CD's, or mp3's, or AAC, or tape, or 8-Track, or pigeon carriers. So a mastering engineer takes into account the technical limitations and benefits of a delivery format and tweaks the mix to produce the best sounding audio for that format. \nFor example, vinyl may sound more bottom heavy than an mp3 would of the same song. So a mastering engineer might add more bass to the mp3 version to compensate and ensure that both versions sound their best.\n\nPeople here are talking about compression, but there are 2 types of compression at play:\n1) Codec compression. This is the lossless vs lossy debate. To make it so you can fit 10,000 songs on your iPhone, there must be some loss of quality. Most people are okay with the trade off, but if you listen to the music on a good sound system, you'll be able to hear the difference.\n2) Compressor/Limiter. This is a sound production technique that reduces the dynamic range of a sound. By this, I mean that it increases the volume of the quiet sections, and reduces the volume of the loud sections. This is often used for radio mixes, since they often believe that if it's too quiet, people will change the station. And by the way, this is also where the difference between 'volume' and 'loudness' is evident. Strictly speaking, volume is a technical description - how many decibels does the sound signal produce. Loudness is how loud you perceive the sound to be. For example, if there is a single voice singing at -20dB, it won't sound as loud as a full orchestra playing at -20dB. A Compressor/Limiter would help level out this perceived difference in loudness.\n\nSo, to answer the OP's question, Mastered for iTunes, in theory, means that a mastering engineer has taken the final mix of a song/album, and tweaked it so that it will, in theory, sound its best when downloaded from iTunes and played from an iThing, based on the strengths and weaknesses of the codec being used.\n\nIt may be a marketing gimmick (it is Apple, after all) and you may or may not be able to hear the difference in the sound, but this is what Mastering means in this context.",
"When you compress audio with a lossy codec like mp3 or AAC you can alter the mix slightly before encoding so that it will retain more audio information after the encoding. This mostly has to do with dynamic compression which makes soft sounds louder and louder sounds softer. If you mix for CD it's got a very high signal to noise ratio and capable of very dynamic audio. ",
"Mastering engineer here - there is definitely not any sweeping gain reduction or stereo processing that Apple is doing once they get a hold of your file...\n\nWhen a track is sent to iTunes, Apple converts the audio file to the AAC format. With \"Mastered for iTunes\" (or MFiT) tracks, the mastering engineer listens to the track AFTER its conversion to AAC, and prepares a high-resolution file that is tweaked to account for the changes that take place. When MFiT was first being rolled out, Apple was very helpful to mastering engineers - they set up meetings with the top mastering studios to explain exactly what the technical specs are. They also provided tools for us, one of which is the exact same AAC converters that they use - so we would know EXACTLY what their process would be doing once they received the file. \n\nHere's a link to the specifications, with info about the tools provided:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nApple's conversion process has gotten much better in recent years, so the differences between MFiT and non-MFiT are less noticeable than they used to be. At the very least, if the only difference is that the MFiT version was made from 24-bit instead of 16-bit - I think the difference would be worth it. Especially if the cost is the same, ya dingus!\n\n\n\n",
"Does anybody remember how to use a search engine any more..?\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/docs/mastered_for_itunes.pdf"
],
[
"http://www.audiobaymastering.com/mastered-for-itunes-mean/"
]
] |
||
254993
|
why can't we feel the effects of accelerating and traveling through space?
|
I'm curious as to why we can't feel ourselves traveling through the universe. I understand that Earth's gravity keeps us rooted here, but why can't we feel anything more as we fly through space? In particular, what about astronauts who mostly escape earth's gravity?
I searched for this in ELI5, but I couldn't find anything. My apologies if it's been answered before.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/254993/eli5_why_cant_we_feel_the_effects_of_accelerating/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chdiy3w"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Humans don't feel velocity - or the rate that we're traveling. Imagine driving in a car in cruise control, you really don't feel anything unless they're starting or stopping.\n\nTherefore we only feel acceleration - the change in velocity. Which is where orbit becomes interesting. Since we are moving in a circle, there will always be some acceleration, but because of the size of the orbit, we won't notice it. It's negligible. \n\nThink about driving in a very large circle, the size of the united states in your car. If you were to drive on that road that was a perfect circle, but that large, that road would seem like it's going perfectly straight, and that's just because of how large the circle is, you wouldn't notice it.\n\nAnother way to think about it is to zoom into a high-resolution picture of a circle. If you zoom in far enough, the round circle that you know exists will seem like a straight line."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
qwcpp
|
the difference between asprin and ibuprofen.
|
What are the differences? What are the side effects of each? Which is better to take for what types of pain (headaches, muscle pains, etc)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qwcpp/eli5_the_difference_between_asprin_and_ibuprofen/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c40yz7t"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"[Studies have shown](_URL_0_) that aspirin is most effective for some people, ibuphrophen or tylenol for others. Use whatever works with the least side effects.\n\nAspirin and ibuprophen are both non- steroidal anti inflamatories, acetomenophen is only a pain reliever, it won't reduce swelling in a sprained ankle, while the NSAIDs will. Aspirin is also a blood thinner, it inhibits clotting. It isn't necessarily good for your heart, but it will reduce the impact of a heart attack or stroke, if you start having one.\n\nedit- Not a doctor, probably facts wrong, leading to either minor superpowers or hiliarious death. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/09/26/140705557/when-it-comes-to-pain-relief-one-size-doesnt-fit-all"
]
] |
|
8h1t1x
|
why are animatronics so jerky?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8h1t1x/eli5_why_are_animatronics_so_jerky/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dygdo41"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The problem is that the things being moved are heavy and the mechanisms moving them are rigid. If you command for an arm to be moved to a position then that is a lot of weight which is accelerated and needs to be slowed down when it reaches that position. A simple command to move then would result in a very fast acceleration along with a very fast stop, with all the flexing and vibration that implies. That looks jerky.\n\nA more realistic movement involves a more gradual acceleration and deceleration, perhaps even in several stages along the way. It is a much more complex thing to program and requires fine control over the movement of the mechanism."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
a3cyiy
|
how does negaive mass work in physics?
|
I saw the article below and wondered how it could be possible to have a negative mass.
_URL_0_
How will it behave in a classical situation? How would gravity interact with a negative mass?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a3cyiy/eli5_how_does_negaive_mass_work_in_physics/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eb54ojv"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Gravity would attract negative mass exactly the same as it attracts positive mass, zero mass, and empty space. \n\nThe gravitational force of negative mass would be a push rather than a pull. \n\nIf you heard about the Alcubierre drive everyone was making a big deal of a few years back, that essentially works* by putting a giant positive mass in front of you, a giant negative mass being you, and let the two push/pull each other and you along with them. The rest is just shaping the masses in a clever way that minimises tidal effects within your spaceship. \n\n*) No working Alcubierre drive has ever been made on account of nothing with negative mass ever having been observed. This hasn't changed. Negative mass dark matter and faster than light Alcubierre drives are both purely mathematical constructs at this point in time. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/a3a33c/scientists_may_have_solved_one_of_the_biggest/?utm_source=reddit-android"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
8db1ku
|
why is it that most people like sour things when younger?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8db1ku/eli5_why_is_it_that_most_people_like_sour_things/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dxlunqy"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[All of the cells in your body (except brain cells) get replaced every 7 years (or less).](_URL_0_)\n\nNew taste receptors, new taste buds. We're just ghosts in a shell. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3545678/"
]
] |
||
29fs2f
|
why is manga/anime, essentially comic books and cartoons, so huge in japan?
|
So, I've recently been getting into anime/manga and it's kinda made me curious. From things I've heard about anime in Japan, it's supposedly on almost every major network. I've also got a friend at work who lived in Japan for a couple years who says he would see people reading manga all the time, including an elderly man on a train.
I mean, America has these things as well (comic books/cartoons), but here it's more of a nerd culture, underground kinda thing. Whereas in Japan it's like mainstream pop culture. I just want to know what it is about Japanese culture and it's development that makes this the case.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29fs2f/eli5_why_is_mangaanime_essentially_comic_books/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cikhvl1",
"cikiy4g"
],
"score": [
8,
11
],
"text": [
"because Japanese society in general is built on repression and public decorum, to a toxic level. Most are faking every second and movement of their lives in order to survive, most often saving their true colors for more hidden releases. \n\nSo you want to fantasize about living another life, doing things that are utterly forbidden to you, or just want to immerse oneself in the comfort of knowing that there are 20 more seasons of a mundane slice-of-life anime to binge-watch without risking public shaming.\n\nIt's cheap, it's plentiful, infinitely malleable (due to lack of human actors, anything could be depicted), and it plugs right into reality denial. One could say it's a media-drug.",
"The way it was explained to me is that there's a mentality in the United States, and probably most of the Western world, that most cartoons and comics were originally intended for and targeted towards children (and to a lesser extent, the parents thereof), a mentality that's only recently falling apart. Japan never adopted that mentality, and it's just as legitimate form of storytelling as books or live-action shows and movies."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5owvz3
|
if china has empty ghost cities while also having many of its citizens struggling to find livable housing, wouldn't it be better for their economy to lower the price tag for the ghost city apartments to populate them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5owvz3/eli5_if_china_has_empty_ghost_cities_while_also/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dcmnixh"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The problem, or one of the problems, is that these cities are in the middle of nowhere and lack proper stability. For instance would you move to the middle of Kansas with the possible, not even 100% that you can get a job and survive. It becomes less about money and more about practicality. You would have to leave your hometown and everyone you know, unless the slim chance they would also like to move with you to the what is essentially shitty real estate"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
enjdlv
|
why commercial planes don't flight in rect line from point a to point b
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/enjdlv/eli5_why_commercial_planes_dont_flight_in_rect/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fe0904a",
"fe093eo",
"fe096fo",
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"score": [
7,
4,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"1.) Map projections will usually show what actually is a straight path on a globe as a giant curved path on a 2d map. \n\n2.) For long/transoceanic flights, the aircraft has to stay within a certain amount of distance from any suitable diversion airport so that in the event of a single engine failure, the plane can reach that diversion airport within a length of time with only a single operative engine. Look up \"ETOPS\" for more information, but this basically prevents crazy routes like flying over the South Pole.",
"It’s the most direct there is, a globe is curved so what seems straight on a map of really isn’t. Also they want to stay over land as much as possible.",
"To add to what was already said, on super long flights planes often take advantage of largescale wind systems in the upper atmosphere to get extra speed, allowing them to travel distances in less time than if they just flew straight from one point to another.",
"Also there are defined 'highways' or corridors in the air and flights are assigned them so planes don't get too close to each other. If the direct route conflicts with other planes going somewhere else your planes route will likely be less optimal. That's why the Captain announces when route changes have been approved to go around a storm or find smoother air at a different altitude. They can't diveate from the standard route without air traffic control approval because another plane may be in their way."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1nre1j
|
why do we have allergies? do we develop them or are we born with them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nre1j/eli5_why_do_we_have_allergies_do_we_develop_them/
|
{
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"cclasp3",
"cclb9wj",
"ccleyom",
"cclflqm"
],
"score": [
5,
8,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"And also, can you grow out of them?",
"Allergies are overreactions by the immune system. It can range from I'm feeling a bit itchy, or other mild effects, to death.\n\nSome you seem born with, others you acquire during life (you might keep coming into contact with something and eventually develop an allergy to it) and you can also grow out of them. There are treatments to help people grow out of some allergies where you are exposed to low doses of the allergen (what causes an allergy) until your body learns to not react to it.",
"From what I have read, an allergic reaction is basically just your immune system not recognizing what it is encountering and mistakenly attacking when it doesn't need to. The article I read claimed that this is due to broken or malformed sequences in a persons genetics.",
"Allergies seem not to be genetic but people are genetically prone. Exposure to parasites seems to reduce allergic responses and so many people think that the lack of stimulation for parts of the immune system lends to cause harmful self responses. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4z8ehk
|
what would be the implications of having all personal tax returns becoming public knowledge?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z8ehk/eli5_what_would_be_the_implications_of_having_all/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6tpl42",
"d6tqfun",
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"score": [
3,
4,
5
],
"text": [
"Identify theft would be the big one, with your SSN they can open up credit cards and file false tax returns in your name. It also creates a way to target the wealthy (that guy hiding their lottery winnings from their family loses that and now their cousin fresh out of prison comes asking about it).\n\nOther issue is security questions are often based on personal information, and much of that information is actually on your tax return, it opens up a lot of systems relying on those security questions.",
"Aside from making identity theft even easier, the lack of privacy would be unsettling for a lot of people. All of your coworkers could easily see how much money you're making and compare salaries. The charities you donate to would be visible to everyone. While some might not be all that sensitive, like nobody probably cares that you donated to the food bank, it would reveal some things that some folks might be less comfortable with absolutely everyone knowing like a donation to a gay organization or a political group or a church. Also the size of your gifts to different things would be visible. You don't necessarily want each charity to be able to size up your yearly giving budget and vie for a bigger piece of the pie or push for a bigger donation or charities that you haven't given to to use your generosity to similar organizations to target you to solicit for a donation . Also,lots of folks might not want their medical spending visible. You might not want your job (or potential future employers) to know you have had to spend a lot on health care this year. ",
"I live in Norway where tax returns are public knowledge, and pretty much all of what some of the other commenters here are saying is just not happening. The rich are not being hold hostage for ransom, no rampant identity theft (Public tax records does not mean public SSN) and there are still plenty of ways to hide your money. \n\nBig surprise I know, but the world does not turn into some dystopian nightmare of identity theft and taking hostages for ransom.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/apr/11/when-it-comes-to-tax-transparency-norway-leads-the-field"
]
] |
||
3lh032
|
if a ten year old would fall into a coma for 10 years, would he have the mental capacity of 10 or 20 year old?
|
I'm guessing the answer is yes, but are there any documented cases of this hapenning?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lh032/eli5_if_a_ten_year_old_would_fall_into_a_coma_for/
|
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"text": [
"There are 3 things to consider: no experiences are gained during the time in coma, some pathways mostly dependant on aging will be build but brain damage can arise from being in a coma for longer periods of time. Meaning that in field where experience is important like socially, it will be like 10 y/o but other areas might have undergone some development and end up at a higher mental age. If the time of coma would not be too long and support would be provided then no real difference would arise.",
"Neural pathways are formed by social experiences and learning. The brain would still grow, but the boy's ability to learn and socialize would have missed the opportunity to develop. He would not have the mental capacity of a 20 year old. He will have developed severe learning disabilities and permanently impaired social skills, but he could still learn college level materials with extra effort. ",
"What is your favorite color? \"Yes.\"\n\nI don't think this is a simple math equation, as being 10 and being asleep 10 years means you wake up 20 in your mind. He'd wake up and remember the last things he had done or what not prior... depending on the severity of damage. If you're asleep, you're not learning. There is the possibility of subconscious pick up, but that's just a random thought I had, don't take it too seriously.",
"Psychology student here, I want to clarify that I have never heard of such a case.\n\nThe human brain develops in an interplay between nature (genes, biological development) and nurture (learning, interaction with the world). If the mental capacity of an individual depended only on biological development, then the only variable affecting IQ would be genetics. We know that environment (in which you grow up, socio-economic, even illness or poverty etc) affects an individuals IQ so it would be wrong to assume that after 10 years of no stimulation an individual could have developed *on par* with people the same age. \n\nNote that comas are caused by injury to the brain (often irreversible) such as head traumas, oxygen deprivation or swelling. \n\n > In more severe cases a coma may last for over five weeks, while some have lasted as long as several years. After this time, some patients gradually come out of the coma, some progress to a vegetative state, and others die.\n\nWikipedia, Coma. \n\n & nbsp;\n\n**I would assume** that the mental capacity of the 20 year old (without any conscience through adolescent years 10-20) would have severely retarded development and probably behave (and perform on an IQ test) equal to a 5 year old. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
9xgo5x
|
how does a coin flip have a 50/50 chance of landing heads/tails, but at the same time each consecutive flip not have an impact on each other.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xgo5x/eli5_how_does_a_coin_flip_have_a_5050_chance_of/
|
{
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"e9s6jib",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"There is absolutely a difference between probability in practice and on paper and you could absolutely flip a coin a million times in a row and get heads every single time. It's staggeringly unlikely, but the reason for that unlikeliness isn't because of the prior flips. Just that the likelihood of tails is also 50%.\n\nProbability in mathematics is more about what things will tend towards, rather than a hard and fast rule that the situations you're assessing will obey. :)",
" > At what point does it become more likely that a flip will land opposite of what it landed previously? \n\nThe statistical likelihood would never change. For each flip independently, the probability of a heads/tails would be 50% and each flip would have no impact whatsoever on the outcome of the following flip.\n\n > If the flips don't affect each other, what's to say that I couldn't flip a coin and get heads 5 million times in a row?\n\nIt could very well happen, but the probability of it is extremely low as you're no longer counting each flip independently, but rather as a string of actions in which a very specific outcome is required.",
" > At what point does it become more likely that a flip will land opposite of what it landed previously?\n\nNever.\n\n > If the flips don't affect each other, what's to say that I couldn't flip a coin and get heads 5 million times in a row? \n\nYou could. However, you only have a 50% chance of getting heads each time. So each longer string becomes less likely.\n\nThink of it like this. \n\nWhen you flip a coin, there are two possibilities, each one having 50% chance of occurring:\n\n* H\n* T\n\nBut if you flip it twice, now there are four possibilities:\n\n* HH\n* HT\n* TH\n* TT\n\nSo now instead of a 50% chance of an outcome, you have a 25% chance (4 equally probable outcomes).\n\nFlip it three times?\n\n* HHH\n* HHT\n* HTT\n* HTH\n* TTT\n* TTH\n* THH\n* THT\n\n8 possible outcomes, or 12.5% chance of each particular outcome.\n\nCan you get HHH? Yes. Can you get TTT? Yes. But it's not any more likely than any other outcome, so the more possible outcomes, the lower the chances.\n\nAs you can see, 5 million flips would make a *lot* of possible outcomes, and the \"All heads\" or \"all tails\" would be only two of them, just as likely as any other. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
etv65x
|
what do you hear when you put a shell to your ear?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/etv65x/eli5_what_do_you_hear_when_you_put_a_shell_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ffitz4c"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I’ve always heard that a shell is amplifying the sound of the blood flow in your ear. Which makes sense if you think it sounds like the ocean"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
b6efj4
|
why did rotary phones exist before buttons? they look needlessly complicated.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6efj4/eli5_why_did_rotary_phones_exist_before_buttons/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ejjvf6a",
"ejjviw1"
],
"score": [
8,
7
],
"text": [
"Basically it was a method of sending a signal on the line indicating who to call, before we had the technology available to use tones.\n\nSame as with any older tech. An old floppy disc has moving parts. An SSD doesnt. Most would say the SSD is more complicated though. Your iphone is more complicated than a rotary phone as is a push button too.",
"It's actually a very simple design for what the phone needed to do.\n\nWhen the landscape was moving from a human-mediated system to a computerized one, the big question was how do you determine what numbers are being sent? How does the system know what number you're trying to call?\n\nAs it turns out, a really simple solution was to send pulses of electricity (hence the name \"pulse dialing\") down the phone wire to indicate what number was being dialed. How do you get pulses in a predictable pattern? By using your finger to select the digit, then have the dial smoothly return to its zero position."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
76pds6
|
why do bugs (cockroaches and ants mostly) not die in the microwave while it's on?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76pds6/eli5_why_do_bugs_cockroaches_and_ants_mostly_not/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dofq3tj",
"dog3cn4"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"1. They feel the heating effect and try to seek a spot in the microwave that isn't getting as much of it. (Microwaves are not very even.)\n2. Their very small bodies, like any very small object, are not very good receivers of microwave energy. It will tend to get absorbed more by any larger objects in there.",
"In addition to what already has been said, The exoskeletons of insects actually do a great job of absorbing radiation to keep it off the organs."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
70yaxh
|
what is the difference between the psychoanalysis and psychodynamic approaches in psychology?
|
What are the pratical and theoretical differences between the two? Are the names interchangeable?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70yaxh/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dn6ug50",
"dn6zd3c",
"dn79s72"
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"score": [
3,
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2
],
"text": [
"Psychodynamic approaches are shorter term and focus on the subconscious' effect on the conscious actions. Psychoanalysis is a more elaborate term for longer treatment programs. Also in its infancy psychoanalysis focused more on childhood trauma and its manifestations in adult life but that's mainly because Freud was into that kind of thing.",
"Psychoanalysis was established by Sigmund Freud in the late 1890's. It basically is the belief that repressed negative memories from childhood dictate the person you are now regardless of your knowledge as such. Also that underlying sexual repression accounts for all of your motivation as an adult. Mostly the study of repressed memories that are not easily recalled.\n\nPsychodynamics was also pioneered by Freud, but it depends a lot more on conscious memories that can be easily remembered. Also expects more from the subject, in the sense that they have control of thier memories and can use them to empower themselves.\n\nPlease know: Many modern Psychologists consider Freud's work bunk by today's standards. He was an important historical figure in psychology that got the ball rolling so to speak..But his theories have long since been improved upon.\n\n",
"Master's level student in a counseling program here. We just covered the Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic theories! Other answers are right in that Freud came up with Psychoanalysis, and that Psychodynamic therapy is shorter. But the Psychodynamic approaches are approaches that branched off from his in slight ways, while still keeping some of his ideals about human nature, or certain therapy techniques.\n\nSigmund's pupil, Carl Jung, eventually parted ways with him, creating his own branch of psychological study, as well. \n\nThe many types of psychodynamic approaches usually share certain concepts with Psychoanalysis; like the id, ego, and superego; the idea of a conscious level, subconscious, and unconscious level of thought; impact of childhood experiences; personality being formed by roughly the age of six. But they differ in other ways.\n\nJung thought there was a \"collective unconscious\" shared by all human beings. He also thought we contained archetypes within our minds that compiled into our personalities. He thought that people had both male personality traits (animus) and female personality traits (anima) within us. There are other archetypes, such as the Shadow (our dark thoughts and impulses), The Maiden, The Divine Child, and many more. Jung also believed that complexes come from \"emotionally charged associations at the unconscious level that are gathered around an archetypal center\" (Elsie Jones-Smith, Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach 2016 page 69). \n\nOther Psychodynamic Approaches include Attachment Therapy (John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth), Self Psychology (Heinz Kohut), and Ego Psyghology (Anna Freud, Erik Erickson, and Donald Winnicott).\n\nThere are so many theories, and even I haven't fully understood them all. It takes a lot of study! The differences between the theories depend on which one you're talking about, too. I recommend looking in your local library for more information, especially to see if you can find some psychology or counseling textbooks if you want more information."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2wxvfv
|
why do vaginas have two pairs of lips?
|
I recently saw an artist's rendition of one and was dumbstruck. Wouldn't one set do the job just fine? And alternatively why do our mouths have just one pair?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wxvfv/eli5_why_do_vaginas_have_two_pairs_of_lips/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cov4quf"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Both the labia majora and the labia minora have the function to protect the sexual organs, but both of these do that in a different way. The labia majora are mostly made up of fatty tissue. They offer more protection from bumps and things hitting against the vulva. The labia minora on the other hand are far thinner and serve a function far more like the foreskin. They also protect the clitoris and vagina, but they also have a function of keeping everything at a certain moisture percentage (if the skin there would dry out it would be far more likely to break and get infections) and are very sensitive so they also give a woman pleasure when stimulated. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
d4jk51
|
what is the natural advantage millipedes and centipedes get from being long/having that many legs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d4jk51/eli5_what_is_the_natural_advantage_millipedes_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f0d45d4"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Multiple legs means that if some are damaged mobility isn't drastically harmed, you can always have some legs which are gripping the surface no matter what the terrain."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5gxomh
|
how can men be raped by women they find attractive?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gxomh/eli5_how_can_men_be_raped_by_women_they_find/
|
{
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4,
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"text": [
"Just anecdotally, if an ugly girl grabs my dick and starts rubbing it, it may take a while but eventually, the blood will flow. The blood always flows. \n\nFFS, we get random wood all the time. I have little to no control over the little blood nazi. ",
"Don't bother.\n\nYour family member sounds like an old blowhard stuck in modes of thinking from 40 years ago. Nobody credible in any academic community that deals with sexual crimes has held that line of thinking in decades.",
"Arousal is a physiological response. If you don't want it than you don't want it. There are other kinds of rape than brute force, say date rape with the use of a drug cocktail or rape by coercion. I believe that rape is an act of control and not just a sexual one. Just because you weren't beaten and sodomized at gun point doesn't mean you weren't a victim. It sounds like they worked pretty hard to invalidate your feelings and I'm sorry for that. Consider that a large percentage of female rape victims report having an orgasm, that doesn't change the fact that they were subjected to sexual contact that they didn't desire.",
"Just like you can't will your heart to stop beating, or your lungs to stop breathing for an extended time period, sometimes you can't will an erection down. It is possible for a man to get an erection through forced stimulation even if he is not emotionally attracted to someone. In fact, sometimes, males can become erect even through situations involving high adrenaline or emotional states. Sometimes soldiers report experiences of \"combat boners\" during times of battle. There are also many examples of rape cases where men maintain erections even under high stress and threat of safety or loss of life - not exactly an attractive scenario. Your relative is also assuming that the victim is always sober, which definitely isn't true - the presence of drugs or alcohol, for example. It's both inaccurate and an insult to assume that men can't exercise any sort of self restraint or can only control themselves until they get a hard on. The base bodily response to sexual stimulus isn't the same as mental arousal or attraction. Ideally, both would happen at once. Sometimes, one can happen without the other. There are cases where people are able to \"think\" themselves into orgasm without physical stimulation. Orgasm also happens during sleep. Sexual arousal during rape is the perfect example of the separation between mental and physical arousal. All the body needs to do is reproduce, and sometimes it has no way of being able to know to stop even though the mind might be unwilling or even disgusted. ",
"Rape is being forced to have sex when you do not want to have sex. \n\nHaving an erection and ejaculating is a physical function of stimulation. Men get erections when scared, when aroused, and when they have blood pressure fluctuations and you ejaculate when enough physical stimulation has occurred. There are no credible studies that support what your family member claims. So he is not actually an old school academic because he has nothing to support his side. ",
"Attraction does not equal consent.\nAn erection does not equal consent.\nEjaculation does not equal consent.\nRape does not require a penis in a vagina.\n",
"Men don't have full control over every aspect of their bodies just like women don't. An erection is an automatic response that men that have control over. You can try to control the stimulus that causes it for example like by watching porn but you don't actually control the erection. In fact it's common for men to randomly get erections at awkward tunes ouer for random things to cause one even when the man didn't want one. Same can be said for ejaculation. Once again if the stimulus is there then it's gonna happen. \n\nThe same thing happens to female rape victims and they often feel guilty because during the rape they became sexually aroused and all the symptoms that come with it. They even orgasmed and blame themselves because they feel that if they truly didn't want to be raped those things wouldn't be possible but they are. It's all automatic responses by your body to sexual stimulation or anything that remotely resembles it. You can't turn it off no more than you could stop your heart from beating."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
f11rjp
|
how does a magnifying glass in sunlight create burning heat?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f11rjp/eli5_how_does_a_magnifying_glass_in_sunlight/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fh1hc3d",
"fh230xn"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Magnifying glasses angle light inwardly, light that is coming out at an angle twards the middle of the magnifying lens, the distance where this light meets can be called a focus distance. Lots of light into 1 spot = lots of energy in 1 spot = lots of heat in one spot.",
"When you hold your hand out to the sun, it feels warm, right? A magnifying glass collects the warmth from a larger area like that and concentrates it into a smaller area. More heat in a smaller spot is hotter, and can be enough to burn things."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1wmexo
|
why do israelis and palestinians hate each other so much?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wmexo/eli5_why_do_israelis_and_palestinians_hate_each/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf3d393",
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],
"score": [
5,
14
],
"text": [
"After WWII, the allied governments created Israel so that the oppressed jews could finally have a homeland, and of course for more political reasons as well. But, Palestinians were already living there, they were relocated and still live in huge camps in the desert.",
"[Here is an link](_URL_1_) I'd recommend reading. It gives a summary of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over the past century. \n\nBasically, the area of land known as Palestine was controlled by [a lot of different groups](_URL_0_) over time. At the end of the 19th century, an idea called Zionism developed. Zionism was the idea that Jews should have a country of their own, specifically in the region currently known as Israel. The problem was that although Jews used to live there, other people were living there at the time. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Jews acquired land in modern-day Israel. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the region became a British Mandate. After the Holocaust, it became really clear that Jews had a need for some sort of Jewish territory. A vote was held by the UN, and it was determined that Palestine would be divided into 2 territories. One half was Israel, which was given to the Jews. The other half was called Palestine and was given to the Arabs. Seeking to control this new territory, multiple Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948. Israel won and kept its territory. It also expanded into land previously belonging to Arabs. Israel considered expanding into new land as a security measure and the Arabs saw it as unjust colonialism. Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, a pattern continued. Wars would break out (caused by both sides of the conflict) and Israel would win. Israel would then take some more land (although it later returned the majority of the land it claimed). This pissed off the Arabs. \n\nIn more recent times, Israel has occupied land considered to be Palestinian territories. Some Palestinian groups have engaged in terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. At the same time, Israel has occupied territories in the West Bank that are supposed to belong to the Palestinians. Israel has enforced a bunch of restrictions against the Palestinians. At the same time, Palestinians have engaged in numerous attacks against Israelis. This has caused a mutual hatred among both sides of this conflict. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#Overview",
"http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/04/world/israel-fast-facts"
]
] |
||
8umvk7
|
how are people able to feel how wet an object is through latex or vinyl gloves?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8umvk7/eli5_how_are_people_able_to_feel_how_wet_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e1gix4j"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The most immediate giveaways would be the sudden temperature change, as well as reduced air pressure within the glove (glove gets tighter since the air pockets in the glove are getting pushed out)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6sk7wi
|
why do we feel better after we get something "off our chest"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sk7wi/eli5_why_do_we_feel_better_after_we_get_something/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dldje7g",
"dldk2br"
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text": [
"Well, Usually the things you get off your chest are stressful stuff. You keep that anxious stuff in you and eventually your mind is occupied with worrying... But when you \"get it off your chest\" your mind gets a sense of relief since you know someone understands/is aware of your problems, And can potentially help.\n\n(This is probably just a small part of a better explanation. Better explanations from other people may come soon.)",
"When you worry about things, the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated, stress hormones such as cortisol are released. When you get something off your chest, this reduces the worry and those physical responses to worry, meaning you no longer feel so stressed and can relax. Therefore you feel better."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
21pfov
|
if people can determine their own gender identities why can't they determine their own racial identities?
|
I don't believe that the two scenarios are the same, but I've never really heard a coherent explanation for why the two scenarios are distinct.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21pfov/eli5_if_people_can_determine_their_own_gender/
|
{
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"cgf9cd5",
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],
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4,
2
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"text": [
"You CAN choose your racial identity, to some degree, but you can't choose your race, if that makes sense.\n\nJust like you can't change whether you have an X-Y, X-X, X-X-X, X-X-Y, or whatever other chromosome characteristic to define your biological sex, race is an inherited trace based on your ancestral lineage.\n\nBut you can, to some degree, choose your racial identity through your behavior. While formally defining yourself as a specific \"racial identity\" may be taboo in western culture, especially for individuals of Caucasian decent, it can be argued that your racial identity matches the way you think and act more than your race, and by your acceptance into a racial identity by like-minded individuals.\n\nThe difference here, between gender and racial identity, is that because race is so closely tied with ancestry, there's a level of inheritance that you cannot simply choose to be a part of without the approval of those who already have it: it'd be like me saying that I'm of the \"Washington clan\" and a descendant of George Washington, without a member of his family adopting me into it. Genders appear through all ancestries, and there is no formal group based on a collective past that you're choosing to be part of, while with racial identity there is.",
"There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding terms like *sex, race, gender, orientation...*\n\nSEX: Your biological sex is determined by chromosomes. Most people are born XY (male) or XX (female) but some people can be born Intersex where their chromosomes do not match up with their external (testes/ovaries) or internal (penis/vagina) sex characteristics. \n\nGENDER: Who you subjectively define yourself as. Typically either as \"feminine\" or \"masculine\". What constitutes these two dichotomous classifications is largely influenced by culture. What is considered \"feminine\" in America, may not be be in India. A person may not feel they have a gender identity or they may feel they are somewhere in between masculine and feminine. \n\nORIENTATION: Who you like sexually. You may like men (sex) or women (sex), or both or neither. You may like feminine (gender) individuals or masculine (gender) individuals or you may not have a preference. \n\n**Gender is who you go into bed as. Orientation is who you want to go to bed with.**\n\nRace: Is a socio-cultural classification system of people that is not relevant to biology. Biologists, scientists, anthropologists DO NOT use racial classifications because racial classifications involve shifting sets of paradigms. What defined a \"black\" person in 1500's Europe is not the same as \"black\" person living in America. \"Social conceptions and groupings of races vary over time, involving folk taxonomies that define essential types of individuals based on perceived traits. Scientists consider biological essentialism obsolete, and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits.\" Race is all but superficial, and we only need look at Apartheid legislation to understand that classifying people into different races doesn't work. For example, in South Africa a brother and sister were classified one as \"coloured\" and the other as \"white\" because the one sibling failed the test of being able to have a pencil fall out of their hair. Curly hair was considered a \"coloured\" characteristic. If you want to look at someones genes to determine their ancestry that is OK. But instead of looking at RACES you would be looking at a POPULATION. Populations are definable groups of people who are more likely to mate and reproduce with each other than members outside that population. In terms of gene flow, gene inheritance etc it makes more sense to look at the world as populations of humans. A population might be a small village in Africa or the whole continent of Asia depending on your question, its scope and the specific traits your interested in. \n\n\n**Nature vs. Nurture**\n\nAll traits and behaviours are influenced by a genetic/biological/inheritable component and an environmental component. This includes things like skin colour, eye colour, orientation, gender etc. That doesn't mean you can \"find the gay gene\" and make someone straight. Genes are complex. Usually multiple genes control one trait or behaviour + those each gene in itself may control many genes. So that genes can be linked to each other in complex ways. This is made even more complex by the fact that ones environment (our upbringing, what we eat, how much exercise we do, where we live, our culture, what we learn, what we are exposed to) influences how we develop. For example, our orientation may be influenced by whether or not our mother gave birth to a male or female infant first, whether or not we are twins with another female or male fetus, etc. Basically hormones in utero may have important implications for who we become late in life. Most studies of this nature have been conducted on mice, and there have been pretty interesting results. ",
"They can! For most purposes, race is self-reported. When I was a Census enumerator, we had to write whatever race someone told us, even if it was something stupid like Martian, or something clearly 'incorrect' (ie. Hispanic is not a racial group for census purposes-its considered a national origin and is reported with a separate check box. But if someone says Hispanic is their race, we write that down)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2bwtfi
|
why does the stereotypical angry/upset crowd throw tomatoes?
|
In countless films and TV shows, crowds in theaters, or angry mobs, throw tomatoes. I don't understand what it is about the tomato that makes it the perfect way to express the feelings of an angry crowd. What's the history behind it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bwtfi/eli5_why_does_the_stereotypical_angryupset_crowd/
|
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"I believe it came about in medieval times. Criminals were often locked in stocks and people would humiliate them by throwing garbage at them (which usually consisted of rotting vegetables, fruit, eggs, etc). It's a classic style of protest/humiliation that doesn't result in physical harm.",
"People are making a lot of comments about how tomatoes were thrown in medieval times because blank. You also have to think that it is an easy way for movies/TV/Plays to show that a crowd is unhappy and willing to take action, without showing any actual violence from them. If they threw rocks like people really do, then that would change the scene from angry crowd that hates the villain/protagonist, to rioting mob trying to kill the V/P. It is similar to how in movies after someone kills their first person, they vomit. In real life I have never met, or heard of, someone vomiting after shooting someone (and I know a good few people who have had to kill unfortunately, mostly in the army/cops). In the end it is shown much more then would happen in real life, because it is an easy and lazy way to set up a scene without using exposition or other, less heavy-handed, clues. Did it happen? Probably yes. But not nearly as often as entertainment media portrays."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
1pqudc
|
why do we sign important documents with an illegible signature and not our normal handwriting?
|
This just came to me while reading Edward Snowden's letter to the German Government. [Here](_URL_0_). Both signatures are examples of those really unreadable signatures and I was thinking why we do that? Shouldn't our normal handwriting suffice?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pqudc/eli5_why_do_we_sign_important_documents_with_an/
|
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"Well to a degree it's unique to us, but really it's just a formality that was often observed so we still do observe it. A royal proclamation or something was signed so that the document made clear by whom it was issued and was an implied sort of endorsement - it was saying \"Yes, I stand by this.\"\n\nNow it's recognized formally in contracts and legal documents as accepting responsibility for the stipulations of the contract or the validity of the information.",
"Because personal signatures are more difficult to forge as everyone has a unique writing style. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-32616.pdf"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
61wa37
|
why are some shadows darker than others?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61wa37/eli5_why_are_some_shadows_darker_than_others/
|
{
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"text": [
"Basic description. Because of reflected light and other light sources. Distance from the other sources and the reflected light and whether they're blocked from one shadow and not the other is what effects the intensity of the light in the shadow"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
fmu1bg
|
how is cancer so deadly but a person feels fine one day then the next they are told they have 4 months to live?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fmu1bg/eli5_how_is_cancer_so_deadly_but_a_person_feels/
|
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"Tumor immunologist here. Take pancreatic cancer for example. Starts in the pancreas and spreads to the surrounding visceral organs, which do not have somatic sensation—meaning that you cannot feel it growing (or see it, for that matter). By the time it blocks your bile duct and/or infiltrates the liver, it shows up as jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), and by then it’s too late. The infiltration leads to organ failure and ultimately death.",
"When I was 16 my brother and I were waiting on our dad to pick us up from football practice. We didn't live too far so we decided to start walking and we'd meet him on the way. We got home and he wasn't there.\n\nHe left a note saying he had a friend take him to the ER and which ER he went to. We called and the person we spoke with said he had been admitted and was being prepped for surgery.\n\nLong story short, they had done exploratory surgery and found his bowls were basically destroyed by cancer. They removed a lot of his intestines and replaced it with tubing and a bag. He was given 2 years to live, but he died 2 days later.\n\nHe was immortal in our eyes. Nothing was ever going to happen to him. Finding out he had cancer was a shock. Wrapping our heads around only having 2 more years with him was a bigger shock, but when he died 2 days later, it was just numbness. It didn't set in for days. Maybe weeks. I don't even remember the first time I cried, but at some point reality hit and the pain set in and i cried like a baby. It was like hitting your toe on the corner of the bed and knowing it was going to hurt like hell when it hit but the reaction is delayed.\n\nSeptember 25 of this year will mark the 30th anniversary of his death and I still dream about him at least once a week, even though I've lived the majority if my life without him.",
"Exponential growth. At first cancer is a single malformed cell dividing without restrictions. That 1 turns into 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, 8 turns into 16, etc. With each division the number of cancerous cells doubles. (More or less)\n\nSo for the first few months or so the cancer is only a minor disruption, but soon it rapidly becomes larger and larger and starts affecting the function of the entire organ and body. Taking up nutrients and putting stress on other organs causing cascading organ failures if left untreated.",
"Most of what makes people feel bad when sick actually comes from the body's immune system fighting the infection, not the infection itself. When invaders are detected the body will do things like creating huge amounts of mucus to push foreign material out, inflaming the affected area leading to irritation and coughing, creating a fever to make their reproduction more difficult, etc. All that makes you feel horrible but slows down the infection to allow the body to fight it properly. Much of the time this is an overreaction for what is actually needed, but the body can't know what infection will actually kill you.\n\nIn the case of cancer the problem is the body's own cells. The body doesn't even know anything is wrong so it doesn't mount a defense that makes you feel bad. It is also why curing cancer is so hard; how do you kill all of certain parts of you without killing all of you?\n\nWith bacteria they are different enough that antibiotics can be used that kill bacteria very well and human cells not very well. With cancer anything we come up with that kills cancer cells will also kill your normal cells. Our best options only kill cancer a bit faster than they kill your good cells, making the treatment terrible to undergo. But if you don't treat in that way your body continues on blissfully unaware and unreacting... until it can't.",
"Just to add to the other answers, when a Doctor tells someone they have X amount of time, it's usually a highly educated guesstimate as there are so many unknowable factors based on the individual that affect survival rate.\n\nSo you hear stories of \"I knew someone that was told he had a week to live and he lasted two years\" - the Doctor would have been making their prediction based on their personal clinical experience combined with data from studies in journals, etc.",
"Why does Cancer come back after a successful treatment?",
"Exponential growth. I always refer to the lilly pad on the lake problem.\n\nThe covid 19 outbreak is dangerous for the same reason cancer is. Its growth is exponential.\n\nDay 1 there is 1 lilly pad in the pond. The number of lilly pads double each day. The pond will be full of lilly pads in 14 days. On what day is the pond half full of lilly pads? Answer: Day 13 \n\nDay 1 1pad\n\nDay 2 2pads\n\nDay 3 4pads\n\nDay 4 8pads\n\nDay 5 16pads\n\nDay 6 32pads\n\nDay 7 64 pads\n\nDay 8 128 pads\n\nDay 9 256 pads\n\nDay 10 512 pads\n\nDay 11 1,024 pads\n\nDay 12 2,048 pads\n\nDay 13 4,096 pads\n\nDay 14 8,192 pads",
"The estimate for how much time a person has is a big guess, and there are many variables that can change this prediction.\n\nSurgery is the most effective way to remove a large tumor. Chemo/radiation are methods that help achieve the last 5-20%.\n\nConsider is how sedate the individual is/is tolerable of. There is a fine balance between deciding how much continuous pain medication to administer and how much they receive for immediate relief. (This is a moving target)\n\nThere are stages to a person's health, and towards the beginning, it appears they improve (this is typically when medication/nutrition is dialed down). Be aware: that a sick person's health is only going to deteriorate. Enjoy what activities they can do, plan activities, but be ready to take breaks/lower the level of activity.\n\nIt's common to have rapid health degeneration and becomes very noticable, so be prepared, and get comfortable with enjoying the time with them in phases, as it's only moving in one direction.\n\nWhoever is reading this, good luck to you.",
"Apart from, exponential growth due to their nature, cancer cells move to different parts of the body and since they don't behave like host organ cells, their rapid growth depletes the nutrients and perturbs the function of organs, and eventually leading to shutdown of organs.",
"I'll try to ELI5 since most comments apart from the top comment don't remotely try to explain anything but only share personal stories.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nCancer patients feel fine until a late stage of their disease because most of our organs are super resilient. \n\nMost organs will keep on working as usual even when fairly damaged. This is a great advantage for most common diseases and accidents, but the downside is it gives enough time for cancer to spread. And that spreading is not linear, it's exponential. So when a cancer gives enough symptoms to get diagnosed, that means that not only it has spread a LOT, but also that the growth rate is already super high, and will keep on increasing. \n\nCancer kills in different ways : impairing a vital organ, consuming energy for its own growth, making people more prone to infection, blood clots, complications from treatments, and many other... The more cancer spreads, the more these risks add up and combine their deadly effects. \n\n & #x200B;\n\n**TLDR: growth and ill-effects of cancer don't just add up overtime, they multiply. And we're made in a way that makes it unnoticeable for a long time.**",
"Scrolled a bit to see if anyone mentioned the metabolism and didn’t see it.\n\nThe cells divide rapidly yes, but what is important is all of those cells need nutrients, oxygen, and to have wastes removed to survive. Your bodies normal cells are eventually starved of nutrients, essentially bullied by the abnormal cancer cells. This increases the amount of calories you use per day, which is why cancer patients tend to lose weight drastically without effort.",
"How is it so deadly? Because it sneaks up on you and crushes your soul. The emotional aspect and logistics are just as part of how bad it is as is the disease itself.\n\nMy dad has pancreatic cancer. Started March last year. For a few months, he seemed ok, then gradually things got worse. A lot of the \"worse\" was the treatment. The radiation treatment made him feel a little ill and the chemo caused him to often lose consciousness or awake but unable to talk. Eventually, we had to stop both. That was about 2 months ago. He got a little better, but suddenly his health declined rapidly. He lost half his body weight (had been losing slowly for weeks, but now it was sudden). Instead of simply not enjoying food and forcing himself to eat it he went to a liquid diet, and eventually a clear liquid one. Now the only things he \"eats\" are ensure (the clear version) and popsicles. We can't even get him to drink much of the ensure anymore. He's on pain pills that he takes every 2 hours (dilaudid, 2 hours later 10 mg oxy, 2 hours later dilaudid, etc). He went from walking to walker to wheelchair to wheelchair but someone has to put him in it, take him out, and wheel him around. We had a hospice nurse, but with the corona virus we cant even get that now. I just finished a 1:30pm to 12pm the following day \"shift\" until a sibling could relieve me. During this time I had to pick him out of his chair or bed, put him in the wheelchair, and bring him to the bathroom to attempt to urinate or defecate (which he can succeed at only about 1/2 the time) approximately 12-15 times. I kinda lost count. I tried to sleep when i could, but he needs help more often than once an hour, so it isn't that restful. During this time, he wet his bed once and had 4 or 5 bouts of diarrhea. He can't wipe himself. Hell, he can't even lower his adult diapers on his own. Trying to support him and wipe him at the same time, while not making a mess is unfun to say the least. It takes him roughly 10-20 seconds to process and respond to any question. He hates every moment of life and wants to die, but suicide isn't an option for a number of reasons and would also stop the family from life insurance benefits. He's worried about fucking life insurance! Love you dad, but you are LONG past having to provide for us. I just want you to be comfortable and happy, or at least as much as you can be given the circumstances. This is the kind of shit you may not be aware of regarding being a caretaker for someone with cancer. Its not just a sick person lying in bed with occasional doctor visits.\n\nMy dad worked his ass off from the day he got out of college up to his final year with the same company. He was looking to retire at age 63 and get to spend the money he earned and enjoy himself. Instead, he has my mother talking to the HR dept with his company while he sits alone in a hospital bed an hour away from home. That was 3 months ago now. We were only eligible for hospice like a month ago and 24/7 hospice for maybe 4 or 5 days before the coronavirus became a thing serious enough that they couldn't do it. Fuck cancer. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy and my father, through all his faults, was an amazing and awesome guy who took taking care of his family to a level that I have never heard of in others. And for all he did, for all the work he put into life, he had his retirement years stolen from him. \n\nOh, and to top it off, my mother has cancer too, ended up diagnosed about a month before my father. Multiple Myeloma for her, Pancreatic for him. Hers isn't nearly as serious though (as in its not basically an immediate death sentence), but it's still super bad and she has permanent damage to her back and has horrible neuropathy in her hands and feet. She was lucky enough that treatment worked for her and she was able to go into remission. She(barely) gets around with a walker. But shes entirely incapable of taking care of herself, much less him. I had quit my job to take care of them and get them to doctors appts and chauffeur them around. I get calls at all hours of the day for dropped pills or needing to be lifted or food or supplies or groceries because i am gifted/cursed with being a very light sleeper, so they can call and rouse me unlike my siblings. Plus I live somewhat near them. On top of this, I have to be EXTRA cautious about COVID-19 because its probably a death sentence for either of them. Admittedly, it might be a blessing for my father.\n\nI guess my whole point is that cancer kills the person from the inside out, slow at first, but the symptoms get worse and worse and worse until its just too much. They become a husk of their former self. The last doctor we spoke with said my dad could pass any day now, maybe a month at the absolute most. It's the worst experience of my parents' lives and absolutely the worst part of mine. I have debt up the kazoo and no idea how I'm going to pay it off. Its almost comical... I'm considering just going and living with my parents. Out of necessity on both our parts.\n\nCancer tears your family apart. My dad's side has only my grandfather and his brother (who visited for a single day but once over the entirety of the illness), and my mom was adopted and never close to her side other than her immediate adopted parents, both of whom have already passed.\n\nMy grandfather is depressed and while cancer free, has any number of other problems. I'm the oldest sibling and am about to be more or less responsible for the keeping the rest together and for dealing with the will, funeral, and any number of other things that I am sure will pop up and I have no concept of how to deal with.\n\nI was trying to finish my education with my free time I have (not much else to do while i sit around waiting for the next bathroom break or meal to cook for them), studied for certifications I could use to find another job after they pass, but testing centers are all closed down now. Probably shoulda saved that cash for the rent.\n\nSorry, I feel i may have gotten off topic, but I've now typed too much and I am delirious from lack of sleep, but somehow can't get myself to go lay down and crash.",
"Most cancers are not able to be detected until they are at the late stages. They grow quietly until they are negatively affecting how your body is functioning. That’s why it is so important to go to your doctor yearly and do the recommended screenings. We are able to catch some cancers in the early stages if you get screened. Yay for preventative health care! \n\nSide note, as some have already mentioned, it is often the treatment that kills people quickly. As an oncology nurse, more people need to realize that ‘doing everything possible to fight cancer’ is not always the best move. I’ve seen too many ppl die SOONER from not being willing to ‘give up’ on the treatment. They often die in horrible pain and in the hospital away from loved ones. Choosing quality over quantity is a beautiful thing and something we need to get better about respecting and encouraging. Please don’t tell you friends with cancer to ‘not give up’.",
"Depends where the cancer is\n\nSomething like pancreatic cancer will grow causing no problems with the body, then it grows so big it presses on a bile duct and causes issues, scans show the tumour being so far along.\n\nMany tumours won't cause any problems until they grow to a size where they start squeezing the stuff around them. For example my grandmother had kidney cancer but it wasn't interfering with her kidney function but it causes havoc everytime it grew enough to put pressure on her liver. Without symptoms people don't go see the doctor and things progress, hence why pancreatic cancer has such a terrible mortality rate.",
"Lots of answers on here but they don’t cover all the important answers to the question/ELI5.\n\n‘Feeling fine’: the sort of things that make you feel unwell are (as mentioned by another poster) infections (your body reacting to the infection and you get those flu like symptoms), blood loss (making you tired), and tissue destruction (pain). A further way you can feel unwell is from a lack of available energy (again being tired) because something in your body is using it up such as your immune system fighting a bad infection, a condition that sets of a strong inflammatory response such as major burns, trauma, pancreatitis etc, or because cancer (which has a very high metabolism) has spread across your body. Cancer can be growing for a long time before it spreads or causes tissue destruction and only some of them cause blood loss; colorectal (bowel) cancer being the prime example. The big problem with cancer is that it can be asymptomatic for such a long time, hence the importance of cancer screening programs like the good old colonoscopy for colorectal cancer.\n\n‘4 months to live’: thankfully this situation doesn’t happen as often as you may think, there are a huge number of people who have had their cancer and are still here to tell the tale. The 4 months to live situation occurs when cancer has spread to other organs. You can think of the cancer as an island nation, slowly growing in population and once the population is high enough they send out ships to other island to colonise them (the cancer spreading). Just like human populations the cancer cell populations grown exponentially and once you’ve found cancer in another part of the body (from a CT scan for example) then it’s probably in lots of other places too. This leads to a higher risk of all the things listed about that cause symptoms and ultimately death.",
"I’d like to add that there are many bodily dysfunctions that seem sudden, but in reality have been gradually building up until it hits the tipping point that triggers the body’s red alert.\n\nA friend had an abdominal hernia, but it wasn’t a huge deal. Then it worsened, unbeknownst to him. This took time. Then part of his intestines slipped into the hernia and the circulation was cut off to that section of intestines. ALL PAIN RECEPTORS ALERT. In actuality, this was an ongoing series of problems, but the body didn’t freak out until there was a total impasse that could cause death."
]
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||
3hfz00
|
why is it socially unacceptable to wear pyjamas in public?
|
I really want a Felafel right now but I don't want to get dressed, so that led me to this line of thought.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hfz00/eli5_why_is_it_socially_unacceptable_to_wear/
|
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"Its not, If you live in a city where you can easily get Felafel at times when you are in pyjamas then you live somewhere where nobody would bat an eyelid anyway. ",
"It's probably because people assume you have slept in those pajamas, meaning you've been wearing them for like 6-8 hours. And the fact that you are still wearing them implies that you haven't showered or washed yet.\n\nI know a lot of people just wear pajamas to lounge around in and haven't necessarily slept in them, but that will be a lot of people's first assumption.\n\nThen there's also the fact that a lot of pajamas are usually made from very thin material which can be particularly form-fitting, this could be considered to be overly revealing and possibly unflattering. Most people don't want to see the outline of a butt crack while they're grabbing a falafel.",
"The same reason is in unacceptable in the real world to go out in curlers, or your underwear, it suggests to others that you have low priorities in regards to hygiene or appearance, and people will extrapolate from that that you are lazy, etc, whether it is true or not.",
"It's fairly common, at least in Vancouver. I've seen a lot of people go around in pajama pants and completely randomly to lectures in university for example. ",
"This is really common in China as a status symbol. I heard two theories. One is that poor people cannot afford pyjamas so wearing them shows wealth. The second was that people who wear pyjamas during the day obviously do not need to work, so it shows wealth. "
]
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|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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|
48y0ps
|
what is the un declaration of human rights and what does it mean for the world?
|
What is the punishment for governments that don't grant those rights to their citizens?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48y0ps/eli5_what_is_the_un_declaration_of_human_rights/
|
{
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"Nothing, really.\n\nThe UN doesn't have any power to force countries to do anything - they are just a group of representatives that discuss things at an international level.\n\nThere could be a push from the UN for countries to impose sanctions or even declare war against countries which do not follow this declaration, but the decisions to do or not do those things is still held entirely by member countries - the UN does not have the direct power to enforce any of its declarations."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
axym59
|
neutral switzerland - how did they do it ?
|
on the drive in to work this morning, i started wondering how Switzerland was able to stay neutral during world war 2 . given the choice, i am sure that France, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the rest of Europe would have preferred that status. Was it the terrain that made it difficult ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/axym59/eli5_neutral_switzerland_how_did_they_do_it/
|
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"By far, the single largest reason they are able to stay neutral is the fact that their territory is so inaccessible that they really are not worth conquering in the first place. A foreign power could conquer them, but that would require and up he'll march through incredibly dangerous territory for a very small amount of actual land.",
"Switzerland is like a porcupine.\n\nA porcupine is a docile herbivore, but if you have a go at one, the quills come out. Without quills, a porcupine is just a groundhog that could be eaten by predators, but with quills it is left alone.\n\nThis is to say that Switzerland has always taken its military seriously despite having no intention of using them. For centuries, they have understood that neutrality is meaningless without deterrence. \n\nSecond, what if the porcupine was also a banker who helped elites from all sides hide and protect their wealth? You've heard of \"Swiss bank accounts\"...that's because Switzerland used its neutrality to bulk up on financial services catering to the very people who can influence wars.\n\nAnd yes, the terrain helps too. It's good for hiding camouflaged bunkers and such, and for funnelling the incoming enemy.\n\nEdit to add:\nBigger European countries haven't been docile herbivores. They've gone far and wide to expand their spheres of influence, and created conflicts along the way. The smaller ones that didn't start any problems also didn't have strong militaries to protect themselves. ",
"It was of no military value against the cost taking it. The German aim was to neutralise the military threat posed by France before turning east. They weren't just out to grab all territory they could. That's also why they allowed the southern part of France to remain a puppet state in 1940. Pre-war, France had numerically the biggest forces of any nation of western Europe at the time, that's a large reason they had to be put out of the picture. Plus to regain losses in WW1.\n\nIt is also often useful for belligerents in a conflict to have a neutral communication channel between them.",
"The immediate cause of World War 2 was Hitler's desire to dominate the European continent.\n\nHowever, domination doesn't necessarily require an invasion. Switzerland allowed the Nazis to continue banking with them throughout the war, and Swiss factories produced some vital military components for them too. Given that the Swiss were willing to freely offer that much cooperation, additional gains from invading and occupying Switzerland would not have been worth the cost.\n\nHitler wanted a similar arrangement with the United Kingdom, but the Brits were completely opposed to a German-dominated Continent.\n\n > France\n\nThe Germans wanted French territory lost after WW1, which the French were unwilling to give up, and the French were historical enemies of Germany. The people of France would not have accepted neutrality and even if they had, the Germans never would have trusted a neutral France at their backs to stay neutral.\n\n > Poland\n\nOne of Hitler's war aims was to depopulate Eastern Europe and repopulate it with German settlers. Again, this is something the Polish people never could have rolled over and accepted.\n\n > Czechoslovakia\n\nDitto Czechoslovakia\n\n & #x200B;",
"They made being in the military mandatory for citizens, rigged their whole country with explosives, and told everyone \"we're neutral, if you try to go to war with us it will not be worth it\". Then everyone listened because nobody had taken such extreme measures before and also rich people with influence over countries also like to keep their money in Switzerland. Their tactic worked so well the the Nazis went around Switzerland because they didn't want to wake the bear. Pretty much they've turned the country into a giant fortress.",
"Switzerland fought a great many wars during the battle for independence and won most of these, many of the battles were defensive in nature and involved being heavily outnumbered. However fighting on their own ground and with superior weapons and tactics enabled them to inflict heavy defeats on anyone that attacked them, so in the end no one bothered attacking them. The country was surrounded by powerful countries including France Austria and Germany, so attacking them outside of the Swiss mountains was not an option so instead they adopted neutrality and made lots of money staying out of wars. ",
"Be surrounded by inhospitable mountains, keep yourself armed to the teeth, and provide banking/financial services to people who want to keep those things private and people will leave you alone. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nFor ww2 it's speculative but maybe if Germany had taken over the rest of the continent they would have dropped the pretense of observing neutrality. But they never got the chance. ",
"Switzerland is a *bitch* to invade. Mountainous terrain is incredibly difficult to traverse, especially when under fire. There are only a few mountain passes that would allow an invasion, and Switzerland defends those heavily, to the point that today they could detonate a few explosive charges and seal off the entire country.",
"Everyone praises Switzerland for their stance on neutrality but theres a flip side of that coin. These are the guys who would watch their neighbors countries burn and genocides happen without lifting a finger. Imagine you're being invaded by a nazi led army and the swiss are your other neighbor. No need to ask for help. You just know you're done.",
"I have ridden my bike through Switzerland, predominantly in the south of the country. As everyone says it is mountainous and inhospitable. More than just large mountains, all of the mountain pass roads are essential single lane and they all have stretches through large ravines. The roads are cut into a mountain side with a 200m drop to a river/the ground. Literally every pass I have ridden has stretches like this, and usually has a few on each pass. This is what finally clicked with me about why it would be so hard to invade. You would only have to defend/destroy a few short sections of the mountain roads across the country and there would be no way to march into the country. ",
"Czechoslovakia was hated by Hitler, as he stated numerous times in his \"Mein Kampf\". So we would love to be neutral but alas, I suppose we are just a bit too vocal.",
"They... didn't really. \n\nThey cooperated with the Nazis, extended banking to them, and produced weapons and vehicles for them. ",
"Switzerland was useful to the nazis. It can’t produce enough food to feed its population, so had to import it, but was surrounded by Axis-controlled countries. They controlled whether it ate or not. Trains regularly passed through \"neutral\" Switzerland between Italy and Germany, with few questions. Why bother to invade?",
"How i understood it: they remained nice to everyone. Traded with everyone plus they sit on mountains which are a bi**h to conquer to simplify it extremly\n\nIn the end they stored the money as well which was a good selling point for some Kind of peace too i guess. To this point everyone seems to refer to swiss as the \"Bank of the world for the rich\" (at least it seems that way in europe) \n\nTheir army system seems kinds weird tho (no facts here just stories told by a swiss friend)",
"Everyone uses the word \"neutral\" but the more appropriate word is probably \"independent\". They weren't really neutral in WW2. The Swiss National Museum in Zurich has a great history of Switzerland exhibit, and it is fairly self-critical of the WW2 period. The sense you get is they did just enough to keep the Nazis happy enough to not invade. ",
"There's actually an interesting video about this exact topic in the youtube channel \"today I found out\" it can give you a hint about how they did it but not the full picture "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
484kyl
|
why do dishwashing sponges get so nasty when dish soap is anti-bacterial?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/484kyl/eli5_why_do_dishwashing_sponges_get_so_nasty_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0h4yj3",
"d0h5top"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds and you kill all the bacteria. Rinse it out and it's fine again for quite a while. ",
"For one thing, dish detergent is not necessarily antibacterial unless it says it is. Its main purpose is to get the food particles and grease off your dishes, not disinfect them entirely.\n\nSponges are full of tiny nooks and crannies and are very hard to dry, which provides some pretty optimal conditions for bacteria to grow in."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3ez7yf
|
if i were on the moon at its point closest to earth and the moon suddenly disappeared, how long would it take me to hit earth?
|
Assuming I hit at sea level with no parachute or other means to slow myself down. An answer with or without wind resistance is fine.
Also, the moon isn't orbiting. Basically, the earth and I are completely stationary relative to each other, and the starting distance is however far away the moon is on average.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ez7yf/eli5_if_i_were_on_the_moon_at_its_point_closest/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctjsabx",
"ctjunvk"
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text": [
"You would never hit Earth, You would continue whizzing around Earth in the moon's orbital path for millions of years.",
"Assuming you were stationary above Earth at the Moon's closest distance and gravity started affecting you, how long would it take to fall?\n\nTo stall for time I'm going to make the incorrect assumption that Earth's gravity is roughly constant in the vicinity of the moon's orbit, and use energy to solve this, until I can set up the integral and offer the real answer:\n\n.5mvv = mgh\n\nv = sqrt(.5*9.8*h) = sqrt(4.9)*sqrt(h)\n\ndh/dt = sqrt(4.9)*sqrt(h)\n\n(1/[sqrt(h)*sqrt(4.9)] = dt\n\n[1/sqrt(4.9)]*2*sqrt(363,104,000) = T\n\nT = 17216 sec\n\nT = 4.78 hours.\n\nAlthough this assumes Earth pulls the same on the surface as it does on the moon, which is very wrong. It would actually be well over 5 hours; let me see if I can do the proper math with the gravity equation."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
27xwji
|
why do i love the smell of my ball sweat?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27xwji/eli5why_do_i_love_the_smell_of_my_ball_sweat/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci5gr0h",
"ci5h70t",
"ci5hczm"
],
"score": [
2,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"I've always wondered that too. It might fall under the realm of loving your own farts.",
"We all love our own brand! ",
"I used to date this Russian female who'd ask me to not shower for a few days and then spend hours smelling my balls and ass. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2dtbte
|
where/how did the subject of leaving the toilet seat down come from?
|
i know this subject has been beaten to death, but i still dont get it. I'm a man and my way of thinking is that every time i go to pee i have to lift the seat up. so why can't a woman lift the seat down whenever she needs to go?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dtbte/eli5_wherehow_did_the_subject_of_leaving_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjsurg6",
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"score": [
2,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3
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"text": [
"It's because the failure states for the two are completely different. if a half-asleep guy pees in a toilet with the seat down, he might get a little pee on the seat. Not that bad, easy fix.\n\nIf a girl, or anyone for that matter, is half asleep and sits on a toilet with the seat up, it's a disaster. I've done it (I'm a guy). Don't believe me? Try it. Best case, you have a ring of cold, moldy-pee slime around your genitals. Worst case, you just took a bath, and now need a shower.",
"My bf and I agreed to lower the lid on the toilet when we are finished using it. This way, no matter which of us need to use it next, we will each have to lift something (me the lid, and him the lid and seat). This makes it more fair and stopped our grumbling! \n\nThough when we each had our own places, it was almost like an unspoken rule that when we were at the other persons house we would put it back to the way they use it....which lead me to always leave the seat up when I was finished. I thought that was silly.",
"I still don't get this, I think it is an Anglo-saxon thing. In south Europe, this is science fiction.",
"If the lid is down, nothing can fall in by accident, like your cell phone or toothbrush.",
"I'm a man and insist on the both the seat and lid to be down so you don't spray dirty piss water all over the place when you flush! ",
"Both lids should be down before you flush. Everytime you flush microscopic urine and poo molecules ride the water vapor that sloshing water creates. Toothbrushes should be atleast 6 feet away or stored in the medicine cabinet.",
"Used to live with four females, never quite understood the reasoning behind the whole put the seat down thing. After countless times of hearing them yelling \"someone didn't put the seat down\", I decided not only to put the seat down but the lid also. They didn't like that, cause sometimes they're in a rush apparently. My answer, the lid is there for a reason, so I'm putting it down..lol. That'll teach you for embarrasing me in front of everyone. And so it was..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3pn77i
|
why does the pinky toe look so different than the rest of the toes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pn77i/eli5why_does_the_pinky_toe_look_so_different_than/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cw8boom",
"cw8j7yt",
"cw8l8f9"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"My little toe looks like the other 4 small ones just you know smaller. The big toe is the odd one out. Though I am Pedactyloids (I can pick up things) with my toes. Its genetic I think as my brothers and cousins have longer toes as well.",
"Anyone else's pinky toes rotated about a quarter turn?",
"Wearing shoes fucks up your feet and toes. The pinky toe usually gets crammed in towards the foot and/or upward. My pinky toes don't even touch the ground and the nails are nearly nonexistent."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2w1mpt
|
what is the objective or telos of isis? are we doing them a favor by feeding attention to the beheading videos?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w1mpt/eli5_what_is_the_objective_or_telos_of_isis_are/
|
{
"a_id": [
"comtmzk",
"comwvjb",
"comwymo"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"The objective of ISIS is to control all of the middle East. ",
" > The objective of ISIS is to control all of the ~~middle East~~ world.",
"They want to create (at this point it's more appropriate to say expand) a Caliphate - basically one big over-arching Muslim nation ostensibly led by a successor of the prophet Mohammed. In theory the caliph is the leader of the entire Muslim community. They want to unite Muslims under this Caliphate by force.\n\nAlso they are depraved terrorists that even Al-Qaeda say are uncompromising. The media coverage of the kidnappings, beheadings, etc are all force multipliers for them. There is a theatrical element to all terrorism. It accomplishes a number of goals for ISIS - first it legitimizes their power internationally by showing that nobody can/will stop them. It helps to recruit new people to fight in Iraq/Syria and also to recruit cells to operate in other countries. More practically it consolidates their control in the territory they take over. This is why it's not just citizens of Western countries being executed. It's similar to what the Taliban did in Afghanistan and what Al-Qaeda did in Iraq. Murder and intimidation campaigns force the local people to accept they either help ISIS or are put to a particularly brutal death. All the theater makes their reputation real to the world and the next village in line to be subsumed into the \"Caliphate\" - nobody doubts they will execute people for basically no reason, even resident Muslim villagers if they don't provide support. The media feeds this reputation and makes occupied people less willing to fight back. It's exactly what ISIS wants. \n\nOf course all of this will come crashing down in a rain of guided missiles and special forces when the West grows tired of having terror cells pop up in their cities. It will take a lot to get the US over the war weariness from the Iraq war debacle, but the media attention on ISIS is a double edged sword for them that will overcome this in time. Ultimately I think their brutality will be their undoing. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
51egar
|
is halal slaughtering less painful than normal ones? or are modern techniques less painful?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51egar/eli5_is_halal_slaughtering_less_painful_than/
|
{
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"text": [
"Modern techniques use an electric stun which is considered less painful. In my country (Australia) though halal slaughterhouses use a temporary stun so the animal is unconscious before it's throat is cut.\n\nEdit: The stun isn't always electric but sometimes is bolt gun or CO2.",
"The halal demands of cutting the throat are pretty much the standard form of slaughter. It is good for allowing the blood to drain and doesn't damage the meat is the practical reason. In terms of pain, well its a deep cut but at the same time you open up the arteries and blood pressure drops instantly, should lead to unconsciousness rapidly, the brain will starve for oxygen and death won't be too agonizing. Impossible to say what that would really *feel* like without experiencing it much less what an animal would experience that as.\n\n The use of stunning in modern slaughterhouses may or may not be more human depending on what is done, but the reason that its used at all, at least to begin with, is to make it easier to perform the slaughter. Don't want the animals to thrash or get spooked. Some methods include electrocuting an animal, not sure that's exceptionally kind. You can also use a bolt stunner to basically bash them in the face and knock them out, or even smash into the brain and do a bit of scrambling. Maybe it knocks them out fast, but its still being smacked in the head very hard, not perfectly sure how kind that is either. \n\nSome methods of stunning would be available to halal slaughter, just so long as they don't kill the animal or violate some other prohibition. But whether that's more palatable to you is something you'll have to decide. There's not some real pure objective way to gauge the suffering of an animal. ",
"That method of slaughter on a conscious animal would likely be very painful, but only for a short time (a few seconds). I don't suppose the feeling of suffocation would be much better. In any case, the sudden loss of blood pressure and oxygen to the animal's brain after severing the carotid artery would result in loss of consciousness in just a few seconds. The animal may suffer, but not for long.\n\nI don't know much about Islam, but I do not think it is forbidden to use an electric stunner to make the animal unconscious before performing Dhabihah. It may even be acceptable to use a push rod (it's blunt force, but this is not what kills the animal). This is basically how non-ritual slaughter is done in this day and age - render unconscious, then kill. The animal should feel almost nothing.\n\nTry asking your local religious authority or a halal butcher about this, one or the other may be help you find meat that is both halal and humane.\n\nOn a personal level, thank you for working to reduce the suffering in this world. If you would like some help finding a supplier in your area, feel free to PM me.",
"Had a discussion with a large animal vet about this a while ago, and, at least as it's done here (Sweden), there is no difference. Here, halal means saying a prayer, covering the eyes of the animal, stun it and then make a quick, deep cut. So, not a big difference, mostly ritual differences, plus covering the eyes.\n\nHe even said that, anything that was more painful or stressful than \"ordinary\" slaughter would not be allowed, and that the apropriate authorities had looked into the matter and found halal satisfactory.",
"Halal is **not** painless at all. There is a reason we stun animals before slaughter, especially cows. In an abattoir, the animal is stunned to incapacitate or destroy the brain so it can't feel pain while it dies by exsanguination (they cut the jugular veins and carotid arteries, death occurs when blood can no longer reach the brain and the nervous tissue dies.\n\n**Why are halal and kosher inhumane?** Because of the anatomy of the arteries supplying the brain with blood. Most animals receive the bulk of circulation to the brain via the internal and external carotid arteries. This is what you cut if you slit an animal's throat properly. Cattle have an additional artery supplying the brain called the vertebral artery (it's also present in sheep and goats, but doesn't directly supply the brain). As the name suggests, this travels in a small hole in the wings of the cervical vertebrae. It's protected by bone.. it's **impossible to cut with a slaughterman's knife.** There arteries continue to supply blood to the brain after the animal's throat is cut.\n\n**What does this mean in practice?** A sheep will become insensible 2 to 14 seconds after the carotid arteries are cut. Even without stunning that's 2 to 14 seconds of quite considerable suffering and fear. Consider the humble cow with her vertebral arteries. With a good cutting technique, a cow will become insensible after 17 to 85 seconds.. some remain sensible for 385 seconds [Source](_URL_1_). Now sit there and count out 17 seconds... what about 85 seconds... now try 385 seconds.\n\nWe didn't just make this shit up to insult religious sensibilities. This is tested, tried, corroborated, scientific evidence which has been available for decades yet no legislation has been brought in to protect animal welfare at perhaps the most horrific time of the meat production process.\n\nTL;DR: Any slaughter method which doesn't use stunning causes immeasurable suffering to the animal, especially cattle because of the different arrangement of arteries supplying blood to the brain.\n\n[Origiinal text](_URL_0_)",
"Modern techniques are less painful, as is scientifically proven.\n\nI'll use the cow as an example here. Europe as legal background.\n\n**Halal slaughtering**\n\n- Cows are forbidden from seeing cows in the slaughter room of the complex. This rule is often violated, leading to increased stress in the cows yet to be killed.\n\n- Cows are not stunned, meaning it is absolutely certain they will experience everything so long as they still live.\n\n- Cows are placed in a walled metal cage with opening for head and neck. More stress.\n\n- Cows are, depending on the type of halal slaughter, turned upside down in the turning metal cage. More stress, obviously, turns out cows don't like being put upside down. \n\n- Multiple people have to hold still the cows head, further increasing stress but the worst has yet to come: \n\n- The throat is cut using a huge, often not very sharp knife, to hit one or both main arteries in the neck. Most times the trachea is hit as well. Every cut activates a vast amount of nociceptors (pain nerve endings), the neck has many of those. Averaging 9 cuts till the cutting is done, do the math as opposed to as little cuts as possible with modern slaughtering. The cow is still conscious during the cutting and for a short while after, experiencing the intense pain, coupled with maximum stress and blood seeping in the trachea and lungs. It bleeds out and suffocates at the same time. \n\n- From this point on I shall not elaborate since the cow is dead, so well-being is no longer relevant. \n\n**Modern slaughtering**\n\n- Cows are forbidden from seeing cows in the slaughter room. This rule is rarely violated in modern complexes.\n\n- Cows are led to the slaughter room and then stunned. This is done using a metal pin shot at a specific direction in the head, taking out key parts of the neocortex, limbic system and brain stem, which in turn also causes intense bleeding in these respective areas, ultimately causing maximum loss of consciousness and the ability to feel anything. Note that the animal is NOT dead at this moment, despite this act obviously being lethal on its own. The stunning takes less than a second. \n\n- A throat cut is made with a clear sharp blade to hit one or both main arteries and one or both main venes. Due to the heart still beating, the animal will quickly bleed out and subsequently die. \n\n- Post-death slaughter processes.\n\n**How do we know scientifically why modern slaughtering is better?**\n\n- EEG measurements. I don't know the specifics but EEG can be used to determine the state of brain activity. It's not perfect but it's something.\n\n- Less cuts means less activation of nociceptors. \n\n- Indicator movements. These may not be used on their own to determine the state of the animal, but in conjunction with other techniques provide reasonable estimation of the state. Certain indicators have strong exclusive properties, such that presence or lack thereof is strongly correlated with lack of consciousness.\n\n**Why do people think halal is any better?**\n\nI have no clue. I recently saw a video of a woman who instead of taking medicine, listed to an audiobook version of the Koran because she believed that would help and the medicine would not. I know of not a single valid argument in favor of halal. It is very much a political topic, which explains why it's still allowed. The EU pussied out and made exceptions in their laws to still allow national execution of any slaughtering related to religion, such that many countries still allow halal slaughtering. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://np.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/4ww50y/if_we_cant_ban_halal_meat_we_should_at_least_let/d6ag25s",
"http://www.grandin.com/ritual/welfare.diffs.sheep.cattle.html"
],
[]
] |
||
1jirpa
|
why do people use eli5 when they have the internet? is an infinite source of information not enough for you?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jirpa/eli5_why_do_people_use_eli5_when_they_have_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbf28fl",
"cbf28ok"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The sub is for simple answers to complex questions. This may not be that easy to find via Google. The reason you see posts asking for simple answers to not-so-complex questions is either 1) we have a lot of new users to the sub and they're not as familiar with the spirit of it, or 2) *it seems simplistic to you, but not to them*. \n",
"I believe the social interaction is an aspect that some find more useful than just simply searching Google. Additional/specific questions can be asked. Follow up responses are posted and different points of view are shared.\n\nI personally find it to be a great starting point for research. I posted here when I was learning to brew beer. Someone gave a very simple answer with a few key words and I used that info as my guide to decide what to read about.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
48rwha
|
how are those people who are retrieving data from hard drives retrieving data from hard drives?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48rwha/eli5_how_are_those_people_who_are_retrieving_data/
|
{
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"d0lye76",
"d0m1rvc"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"That really depends on what is wrong with the hard drive. \nIf it's a software issue, they use special software tools to extract and rebuild the corrupted data. \nIf it's a hardware issue, the repair procedure can involve replacing malfuntioned parts or removing the magnet plates to put them in a different casing which can read them. ",
"/u/mikey_croatia is right about that stuff.\n\nIf you meant, \"How is deleted data recovered?\", then there are various programs that can recover previously deleted data, but only if you act quickly. \n\nHard drives work by writing information and tagging it with index numbers. If that information gets 'deleted', the drive will erase the index to that area of information. When the drive needs to write something, it finds an area that has not been indexed and writes information, then indexes it.\n\nThe information remains, but the sort of 'page number' has disappeared. Programs can go into these areas and find information that has been written but not indexed to recover it.\n\nHowever, you need to act fast since the hard drive could at any time overwrite that old information and corrupt or remove it entirely. No software can recover what no longer exists."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2z663a
|
why some days my testicles are tight like shelled peanuts and other days loose like a shopping bag of loose fruit?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z663a/eli5_why_some_days_my_testicles_are_tight_like/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cpg09uf",
"cpg0qwb",
"cpg13yf"
],
"score": [
2,
7,
7
],
"text": [
"LOL.\n\nIt's mostly cold I think, when it gets colder they just tighten up.",
"Your sperm requires very specific temperatures to survive. In cold temperature the testes are pulled closer to the body for warmth.",
"As an older man I warn you appreciate that. In a few decades you'll be wearing a jock to keep your junk away from your knees."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6bqplf
|
copper iud
|
Girlfriend talked about a Copper IUD, anything I should know?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6bqplf/eli5_copper_iud/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dhorirl"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"It's a safe, reliable method of birth control. The copper basically acts as spermicide and generally makes the uterine environment more hostile to sperm. It's also reversible - you can take it out if you want to get pregnant.\n\nIt has little strings on the end of it that you can feel at the back of the vagina. Those are there so your girlfriend can make sure it didn't somehow come out (which can happen on rare occasions), but sometimes you may be able to feel them during intercourse. It's not an issue for most people though. \n\nThe IUD can also cause heavier periods and more menstrual cramping in some people, so your girlfriend should be prepared for that possibility.\n\nFinally, no form of contraception is 100% safe, so if you want to be extra careful you should still use a condom or she should be on the pill. And of course the IUD doesn't prevent STIs."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1x6ufp
|
why do older model, non flat-screen tvs produce static on their screens, but newer model tvs do not?
|
Was playing with my daughter last night when she static shocked me with a charge she got from rolling around in blankets. Got me wondering about TV screens and what has changed. Made me also realize she will never feel the power of shocking someone with static that she would pickup from a TV screen. So yeah, ELI5 please.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x6ufp/eli5_why_do_older_model_non_flatscreen_tvs/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf8lsby"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Cathode ray guns in older sets basically shot highly charged particles against the screen to create an image. LED and LCD screens use displays of individual pixels."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
66h2n4
|
why can't we donate fat to people who need it for plastic surgery?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66h2n4/eli5_why_cant_we_donate_fat_to_people_who_need_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dgie34v"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It's not so much as you can't; it's that you don't need to. If you're a plastic surgeon and you need to inject some fat into somebody's lips, why not take some fat from the patient's own buttocks instead? It's not THAT much fat..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
37h2lt
|
how penny bidding sites (like quibids or beezid) make their money?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37h2lt/eli5_how_penny_bidding_sites_like_quibids_or/
|
{
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2
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"text": [
"As far as I know, QuiBids charges $0.60 a bid. So if they see something for $10, that's 1000 bids, and they've made $610. The person buying it gets a pretty good deal and everyone else who bid is screwed. ",
"Generally the cost of all the bids put together outweighs the price of the original item, so everybody's bids all together will add up to like $1500, and the item cost $1200, the site makes a profit\n",
"On ebay, if you bid and aren't the highest bidder, you haven't paid any money.\n\nOn QuiBids, when you bid, that money is gone from your account whether you win the item or not.",
"[we just did this](_URL_0_)",
"You buy bids for 60 cents each, and every bid you spend raises the auction price by 1 cent. When the auction ends, the last bidder gets to buy the item for the final price.\n\nThe major difference between Quibids and other auction sites is that you pay for your bids whether you win the auction or not. If you bid 10 times on something and don't win, that's $6 down the drain.\n\nWhat this means is that if the final auction price for an item with an MSRP of $500 is $15, there were 1500 bids on that item. And since each bid was purchased from Quibids at a cost of $0.60 each, Quibids made $900 just on the spent bids alone. The final bidder pays $15 for the item so Quibids makes 915 - 500 = $415 on the transaction and get to advertise to the world that they just sold a laptop for $15.\n\nAs /u/Sir_topem_hat pointed out, there are also some auctions that are purposefully kept to a limited pool of users or only to beginner Quibids users in order to generate attractive sales like the ones you mentioned--a $1200 Macbook selling for $1.50 wouldn't make a profit for Quibids but it would definitely drive people to the site. Those types of wins are uncommon and Quibids can afford to lose money on them because they make so much more on every other auction on the site.\n\nThe whole thing is genius, really."
]
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],
[]
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||
3zhnmp
|
why are there so many untested rape kits?
|
I understand that there are over 400,000 untested kits. Why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zhnmp/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_untested_rape_kits/
|
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"DNA testing is expensive and time consuming and police agencies do not give priority to old cases so many kits taken before DNA testing was widely available remain untested.",
"Officer here.\n\nA large, LARGE percentage of these untested kits are from cases in which they've identified a suspect. (And subsequently obtained an admission or other evidence that makes a rape kit redundant) \n\nRape kits are generally only useful when the victim does not know the attacker.\n\nMost sexual assaults/rapes are perpetrated by someone known to the victim...and the primary excuse is \"it was consensual\"\n\nRape kits don't prove whether consent was given or not. And if you have your suspect admitting to sexual contact, you don't need a lab analysis to tell you your suspects DNA was on your victim.\n\nNow, rape kits generally include a nurses examination of the genetalia for signs of trauma indicating forcible intercourse, as well as STI testing, but again investigators will get those findings from the nurse and not a crime lab.",
"cost to relative benefit has been too low. DNA testing has been enormously expensive, and the odds of getting any kind of match on a blind test are very low. so the operating procedure has been to test when there is something to test against \n\nthe introduction of multi-jurisdictional data bases and the ever decreasing cost of testing are likely to change this moving forward, but the backlog still presents a logistical problem.",
"There are several reasons for this:\n\n1. DNA testing is very expensive and there are so many untested samples (not just from rape kits, but unsolved homicides, violent crimes, etc.) that, like a hospital, a DNA lab has to have a sort of triage system where certain cases are prioritized over others. When you have thousands of cases backlogged, this means the process can take years to complete. \n\n2. The laboratories are vastly underfunded and overworked. They simply don't have the money or manpower to process all of the rape kits they have. Sadly, sexual assault is far from uncommon and a big city might get over a thousand rape kits in one year. These labs serve multiple cities, and sometimes multiple *states*. So the workload is massive.\n\n3. The police departments are often underfunded. Many departments simply don't have enough money or manpower all crimes. By watching CSI you'd think that every police department has a cold case unit, but in fact, most don't. At some point, a case gets old enough that the police start to move on to more recent cases, and so an old rape kit may not get DNA testing priority over a recent violent crime. \n\n4. Rape is a notoriously difficult crime to prosecute. RAINN (___) says that only [7 out of 100 rape cases even end an arrest, and only 2 out of 100 rapists are ever convicted of a felony](_URL_0_). Honestly, a prosecutor will probably be more willing to take on a case that is more recent and has a higher chance of ending in a conviction, rather than focusing on older cases that have a very low chance of ending in a win for the prosecution. In the eyes of an underfunded police department, what is the point of investigating and doing expensive testing in old cases when the perpetrator is very unlikely to even be *arrested*?"
]
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|
55w794
|
how the hell does having a certain lawyer help you win certain cases?? or if someone is incarcerated how does getting a better lawyer end up getting them out or shortening their sentence?? what did the first lawyer do wrong??
|
EDIT: Sorry for not using a flair im on mobile.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55w794/eli5_how_the_hell_does_having_a_certain_lawyer/
|
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"Well certain lawyers have different specialties, just like doctors have certain specialties. If I need surgery performed, I want it done by a surgeon, not a radiologist. Likewise if im arrested, I want a defense attorney, not a real estate attorney representing me. And just like any profession, some are going to be more skilled/knowledgeable than others. The \"better\" lawyer, may have been more familiar with laws or legal strategy than the first lawyer. ",
" > How does getting a better lawyer end up getting them out or shortening the sentence??\n\nCourt appointed lawyers are paid by the government, and at a low rate. Hence they will often have many hundreds of cases per year. It is very limited how much \"fine law\" one can do under such circumstances. \n\nPrivate lawyers in contrast are paid a better rate, and dedicate (more) time to following up on witnesses, police evidence, etc.",
"I'm a criminal appeals attorney, and I handle non-stop claims by incarcerated criminal defendants who lost their cases and complain about their lawyers. Here's the short version of how I'd answer this question:\n\n1. There are good lawyers and bad lawyers, just like how there are good doctors and bad doctors. But what people don't usually realize when it comes to both doctors and lawyers is that \"good\" and \"bad\" isn't black and white. It's more like a gradient. You can be an A+ lawyer, a B- lawyer, a C lawyer, or an F lawyer.\n\n2. Some cases can be extremely complex and involve difficult circumstances with regard to the applicable law, the investigation, or both. For example, I handled a case recently where a guy broke into an elderly man's house, a very standard robbery where he would have just stole his TV and left. But the owner was there, an 80+ year old man, and in the confusion the old man fell and broke his hip. In the months after the crime, his hip never healed, and he ended up dying from complications and possible medical malpractice dealing with those complications. The burglar's charges were upped to felony murder and the attorneys had an enormous sticky problem on their hands, trying to figure out the exact causation of the old man's death through complex expert testimony and the law as it relates to causation. An inexperienced lawyer could have never handled a case like this, and had the defendant hired someone who didn't know how to handle it, he would have been at a huge disadvantage.\n\n3. Time and resources. Famous, more successful lawyers have the staff to handle cases more efficiently and probably became successful by building a reputation of working his ass off and finding some favorable result for their client. Again, the inexperienced or incompetent lawyer won't have these advantages.\n\n4. This is probably the most important one: This isn't exactly a myth, but the actual effect a \"good\" lawyer can have in your case is probably VERY exaggerated. A better lawyer can't change what happened, can't necessarily get evidence excluded if the law simply isn't on your side, can't change what testimony witnesses will give, and can't change the law applicable to your case. So while they can probably unearth some favorable advantages for some clients in certain cases, probably the majority of cases would have the same outcome unless your lawyer is really truly incompetent, and those are pretty rare.\n\nEvery criminal defendant wants to believe his case would have been sooooo different if he had a private lawyer or if the public defender weren't so overworked or if his attorney had picked a different strategy. This usually is wishful thinking on their part. Not always, but usually.\n\nSo basically: lawyers have different levels of skill and resources like pretty much every other profession. At the same time, though, it's definitely a case-by-case basis as to whether a better lawyer could have actually made a difference in someone's case.",
"Ah well you're asking two different questions. There's a lot of factors at play here.\n\nI'll start with your first question, which a few others have answered but what the hell. A certain lawyer who specializes in something will be better prepared and have more experience in the specific field you need them. There are a *lot* of laws, and it's unrealistic to expect every lawyer to know every single law, and how every law has been interpreted. Instead, some lawyers specialize in certain areas of the law. A lawyer who knows a lot about tenancy laws may not know a lot about divorce laws. A lawyer who knows a lot about privacy laws may not know a lot about criminal defense. In fact, besides a general understanding of how the law works, your average specialized lawyer isn't going to know much more outside their specialty than any given person.\n\nNow, how does having a *better* lawyer help? Well, in theory, your lawyer doesn't actually matter-- whomever presents the best case wins (given the requirements of the case). But in practice, a better lawyer can *better present* your case. And on top of that, a better lawyer is going to know more about the relevant laws and be more creative in how they apply them.\n\nHave you ever seen Good Will Hunting? There's a scene in the beginning where Will cites totally archaic, obscure laws that prove his defense. That's a movie, but the general gist is right-- a better lawyer is one who will know more about these less known laws, and be able to articulate how they apply to your case.\n\nOf course, despite common thinking, a high priced lawyer isn't able to guarantee your case. But they have a much higher chance of finding the *best* way to present your case, and find the laws that are most relevant in your argument.\n\nThere's a whole lot of other subtlety to it as well. Some lawyers may be really good at reading body language, and thus can read how a jury might be reacting to certain information and can guide fellow lawyers on which avenues of defense or attack to pursue. So they might say \"Claiming the cops were lying isn't really sitting well with this jury... you might modify your argument to say the cop was *mistaken* instead.\" And some lawyers may be better at given passionate, heartfelt opening and closing statement-- but they may not be very good at cross-examining a witness, to ask the right questions to trap them in their own testimony. The more you're willing to spend, the more specialized lawyers you'll have on your side, and the better they will be at their task.\n\nI hope that helps explain some of it!"
]
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|
6h1wat
|
why isn't there a disease that's the opposite of depression?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6h1wat/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_disease_thats_the_opposite/
|
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"There sort of is. Just like there are depressive episodes, there are manic episodes. During a manic episode you may feel euphoric, like you are super powerful, you can do anything. You make big plans, you're gregarious, you're thrilled, excited.",
"There sort of is, frequently described as [\"Mania\"](_URL_0_).\n\nMania is characterized by extreme hyperactivity and arousal (not necessarily the sexual kind), frequently along with delusions stemming from the overactivity of the relevant brain sections.",
"The opposite of depression isn't 'joy' or 'happiness'. Those are the opposites of 'sadness'.\n\nDepressed people typically don't even feel sad. They experience 'anhedonia'. Depression is about numbness, exhaustion, and emptiness.\n\nThe opposite of that is closer to mania. "
]
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[] |
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||
3vpcrv
|
why is sex such a taboo topic that children should be 'protected' from?
|
Doesn't make any sense when I think about it but it's what everyone is used to.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vpcrv/eli5_why_is_sex_such_a_taboo_topic_that_children/
|
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"text": [
"It's an american culture thing. \n\nI'm german, and I grew up with the general idea of it, and even if I had no first hand experience, I knew what it was about.",
"Sex is intuitively related to reproduction, one of the main evolution drivers. Being able to choose, or impose, the partner with which you reproduce with is a big issue and best left to \"the people in charge\", that's why until recently most marriages were arranged and sex topics reserved for very intimate occasions, and children were removed from this topic entirely. \n\nObviously this is obsolete by the evolution of morality and family planning technology, but our traditions evolve slower and intuitions slower still. ",
"Mix of a lot of complicated things. A big one is religion,especially Christianity etc where you aren't supposed except to have sex except to make babies with your husband\n\nThe other is in theory,to protect them.if it's taboo,you have less teens running around hormone crazy.STDs are an issue,pregnancy is dangerous If they're too young and they're obviously not emotionally or financially ready to support a child.\n\nIt can also be unhealthy mentally/emotionally to expose them to it when they aren't ready,with no filters.\n\nIt's not fullproof,but it probably prevents some.with the rise of the Internet and such,it's questionable how well it's even possible to shelter them",
"I've always thought it was about kids just not having any filter or the social understanding to know when it's OK to talk about certain subjects and when it's not. It's the same reason you don't cuss in front of little kids- it's not because there's anything objectively terrible about curse words, it's because the social rules about when it is and isn't OK to bust them out are really complicated and a 5 year old doesn't know them yet. Talking about sex in private with your family and friends= OK, talking about it in public with the weird dude on the elevator= not OK.",
"European here. And I knew pretty much everything about sex, by the age of 12. (The basics). Sex education was absolutely normal thing, and my parents were never shy about it. The whole sex attitude for teen's was more of a. \"If teenagers get the opportunity to have a sex, they will have sex. So rather to lock them up, destroy their privacy and prohibit anything they do where they potentionally can have sex, we rather make sure they have acces to condoms at all times, as well as tips and advices.\"\n\nIn America, it's sadly the other way arround. Due to religion, and this obsession that sex MUST NEVER BE DISCUSSED WITH ANYONE EVER. I met people who knew nothing about sex in their late teens.\n",
"It will always be a mystery to me why love has to be hidden but violence is seen everywhere. "
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m3xl5
|
calculating the probability of two things happening at the same time
|
With an example also, please.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m3xl5/eli5_calculating_the_probability_of_two_things/
|
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"You need to be more specific. What type of things are you thinking about? In a continuous distribution, nothing happens at the same exact point. However in a discrete distribution it is possible. ",
"You mean like me flipping a coin and have it coming up both heads *and* tails simultaneously?",
"Um, in the simplest sense, lets say you have a six sided die and a coin. And you wanted to know the likelihood of rolling the die and flipping the coin and getting a certain outcome.\n\nSo lets say we want a six and a heads. Because the outcomes are independent of one another, that is they dont have a direct effect on the others outcome, rolling a six does not influence the coin in anyways.\n\nSo you take the product of the likelihood of event A and the likelihood of event B. So if each side of the die has the same odds, this is 1 in 6, and if each side of the coin is fair then its odds are 1 in 2. thus (1/6)(1/2)=(1/12) this is because there exist six possible outcomes. heads or tails and one through six, thus selecting a combination of them is the product of their likelihood.\n\nNow this only applies to events that are independent. For Dependent events the math is more complex.",
"Calculating the probability is simple if the two things are \"independent.\" \nBasically, independent things don't effect each other or are not related. Here's an example of independent events. Say you roll a dice and flip a coin at the same time. The probability of rolling a (say) 4 and flipping a head is 1/6 x 1/2 = 1/12. It's simply the multiplication of the probability of rolling a 4 (1/6) with the probability of flipping a heads (1/2).\n\nBut not all events are independent. Say we roll our dice first and flip the coin only if we roll a 5 or a 6. Otherwise, we declare a heads if the number is even and tails if the number is odd. (A side note: I could have gotten rid of the random flip upon rolling a 5 or a 6 to make the flip completely determined by the roll. But I want to emphasize that dependent events can still be related in a random way. One event doesn't have to cause the other with pure certainty.) The probability of rolling a 4 is still 1/6. The probability of flipping a heads is still 1/2. However, the probability of rolling a 4 and flipping a heads is not 1/12, as it was when the events were independent.\n\nThe way to calculate probabilities for dependent events depends on the situation, but a nice way is to use conditional probabilities. For the example above, we can look at the probability of flipping heads given that we've rolled a 4. This has probability 1 since, if we have rolled a 4, we have a heads with complete certainty. Then we multiply this by the probability of rolling a 4 (still 1/6). So in the example above, the probability of rolling a 4 and flipping a heads is 1/6.",
"You need to be more specific. What type of things are you thinking about? In a continuous distribution, nothing happens at the same exact point. However in a discrete distribution it is possible. ",
"You mean like me flipping a coin and have it coming up both heads *and* tails simultaneously?",
"Um, in the simplest sense, lets say you have a six sided die and a coin. And you wanted to know the likelihood of rolling the die and flipping the coin and getting a certain outcome.\n\nSo lets say we want a six and a heads. Because the outcomes are independent of one another, that is they dont have a direct effect on the others outcome, rolling a six does not influence the coin in anyways.\n\nSo you take the product of the likelihood of event A and the likelihood of event B. So if each side of the die has the same odds, this is 1 in 6, and if each side of the coin is fair then its odds are 1 in 2. thus (1/6)(1/2)=(1/12) this is because there exist six possible outcomes. heads or tails and one through six, thus selecting a combination of them is the product of their likelihood.\n\nNow this only applies to events that are independent. For Dependent events the math is more complex.",
"Calculating the probability is simple if the two things are \"independent.\" \nBasically, independent things don't effect each other or are not related. Here's an example of independent events. Say you roll a dice and flip a coin at the same time. The probability of rolling a (say) 4 and flipping a head is 1/6 x 1/2 = 1/12. It's simply the multiplication of the probability of rolling a 4 (1/6) with the probability of flipping a heads (1/2).\n\nBut not all events are independent. Say we roll our dice first and flip the coin only if we roll a 5 or a 6. Otherwise, we declare a heads if the number is even and tails if the number is odd. (A side note: I could have gotten rid of the random flip upon rolling a 5 or a 6 to make the flip completely determined by the roll. But I want to emphasize that dependent events can still be related in a random way. One event doesn't have to cause the other with pure certainty.) The probability of rolling a 4 is still 1/6. The probability of flipping a heads is still 1/2. However, the probability of rolling a 4 and flipping a heads is not 1/12, as it was when the events were independent.\n\nThe way to calculate probabilities for dependent events depends on the situation, but a nice way is to use conditional probabilities. For the example above, we can look at the probability of flipping heads given that we've rolled a 4. This has probability 1 since, if we have rolled a 4, we have a heads with complete certainty. Then we multiply this by the probability of rolling a 4 (still 1/6). So in the example above, the probability of rolling a 4 and flipping a heads is 1/6."
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|
36k9nu
|
why is no pharma company interested in creating safe and legal recreational drugs?
|
Im sure there would be a huge market for LSD that you cant OD or bad trip on, or Cocaine that isnt so bad for heart and arteries and not as addictive.
So why does big pharma (who I assume would surely have the means to) not go ahead and do research in that field.
As a side effect they would be doing the world a huge favor by shifting the biggest market on earth into a legal business and reducing the amount of deaths to drug abuse.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36k9nu/eli5why_is_no_pharma_company_interested_in/
|
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"Because making compounds that have just one or two effects and no more on the human body is a hugely complicated task, due to the complexity of the human body.\n\nIf they had the ability to make some drug ABC that could do just one thing with no side effects, and that one thing could be anything they wanted (with regard to the human body), they'd be rich beyond belief. They are unable to do that because the human body is extremely complicated, and every effect you force onto a body via a drug has side effects. In addition, not everyone's body is the same. Your pleasure drug might give someone a gentle, two hour long high, but someone else might get a much more intense, six or eight hour experience due to variations in metabolism and organ functioning rates.",
"It's essentially because most governments don't like new and novel intoxicants, and so pharmas aren't incented to invest in creating them if there's a very good chance some fairly conservative faction will get elected with a platform that includes closing that company down. ",
"A very big, perhaps biggest reason that actual \"fun\" drugs aren't legal is because of the alcohol (and to a lesser extent: cigarette) industry. It has a basic monopoly on intoxicating substances and puts a lot of effort toward maintaining that monopoly through lobbying. \n\nAlcohol is way more dangerous than cannabis, LSD, cocaine, et al. Drugs aren't illegal because they're dangerous. The history of their outlawed status is tied to racism toward immigrant communities. All drugs were legal before 1915, until the Chinese started enjoying opium in California, and later, Mexicans with cannabis (then renamed Marijuana). The drug war (which began when alcohol prohibition ended) then made up a bunch of propaganda that we still hear today. \n\nSo big pharma is probably just respecting big alcohol's territory. They do manufacture drugs that mimic grass and heroin and others, which are used within the medical industry, since that is their territory. \n\nCheck out the book \"Chasing the Scream\" (or just google that + \"interview\") to learn more about drugs and the stupid drug war. ",
"Even if a new drug is found that isn't illegal yet, it probably will become illegal or a controlled substance soon.\n\nIn some countries drugs laws come down to this: if something can be used as a recreational drug it is illegal to store, sell or have that substance if it's use is intended to be as a recreational drug.\nSo even if a new drug is found that is not explicitly prohibited, it's still illegal.\n\nFor a \"safe\" drug to become legal, many laws need to change and need to include a definition of \"safe\" in \"safe drugs\".\n\nIf ever it's going to be allowed, \"safe\" probably means that the drug may not be addictive and that drug users may not become a risk to themselves or others while under the influence.\n\nFor a pharma it costs years and years to bring a product to the market. They have to test the drug for years to be sure it's safe. When a drug finally comes to the market pharma's have a limited time left to earn back their massive investment before their patent expires.\n\nEven if there would be room for legal drugs, pharma's probably won't invest in it because they can't be sure it will be profitable. Cancer treatments and other drugs to treat diseases are interesting because they know people will need them, so the pharma's probably will keep doing just that."
]
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|
5kzi1g
|
what do large marine mammals drink?
|
Building on another question... how do large sea mammals stay sufficiently hydrated? I understand some moisture will come from their food but surely a mammal as big as a blue whale will need to drink a huge amount of water.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kzi1g/eli5_what_do_large_marine_mammals_drink/
|
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"Many marine mammals have a built-in filtration system that allows them to drink sea water and filter out the salt. In addition, they get a fair amount of their water from the contents of prey that they eat, which is often less salty than the water."
]
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[] |
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|
2adhrd
|
why won't republicans pass obamas immigration bill?
|
I hear John Bohner's words about how Obama is doing nothing about immigration, and talk radio as well. The senate has a bill sponsered by Obama which dedicates an overhaul on immigration. Why won't the republicans support it if they feel that the overflow of child immigrants currently crossing is a humanitarian crisis?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2adhrd/eli5_why_wont_republicans_pass_obamas_immigration/
|
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"Because it's his bill.",
"Because it has the presidents name on it. Same reason they've barely passed anything in the past 8 years.",
" Amnesty for people who started out here by breaking the law .",
"The short answer is that Republicans aren't concerned with the humanitarian crisis aspect of it, they're concerned with the public safety aspect of hundreds of thousands of poor, unwashed people and criminals coming here. Each side in this debate has multiple concerns, but the main sticking point is legal status.\n\nRepublicans want the border secured to stop more illegals from coming here and want to punish those who are already here. They feel that these immigrants have broken the law by coming here illegally and are a threat because they bring drugs, diseases, and cheap labor that harms the economy. \n\nDemocrats feel that these immigrants need to be recognized legally in some way. They're people fleeing their countries to come here for the chance of a better life and it would be cruel to try and deport all of them when many of them have already been here for years and having nothing left to go back to.\n\nThe immigration bill the Senate passed includes both a method for securing the border and a method for recognizing illegal immigrants. So why won't Republicans pass the bill?\n\n1. They have no confidence that the border security provisions will have any effect. It'll just create some government boondoggle and waste money.\n\n2. They are ideologically opposed to any recognition of illegal immigrants already here and will not pass a bill that includes any method for illegal immigrants to get legal status, whether it's some form of work permit or full citizenship. Eric Cantor, the House Republican Majority Leader lost his primary to a Tea Party challenger and one of the main campaign points was that Cantor, despite having objections to the Immigration bill, said that we should do something to bring illegals out of the shadows. ",
"Let me explain, as a LEGAL high-skilled immigrant (in contrast to the no-habla-ingles type) who has been dealing with both legals and illegals for at least 2 yrs. \n\n*TLDR: Democrats don't like high-skilled immigrants, because they don't vote for them. Anything less than citizenship for illegals is unacceptable for Democrats.* \n\nThere are two parts of the bill for comprehensive immigration reform: \n1, give high-skilled workers easier access to work visa and permanent residential status, rewards for high degree, skillset, and skilled employment; \n2, give amnesty (or pseudo-amnesty) to illegal immigrants (or better phrased \"pathway to citizenship\")\n\nRepublicans are the fervent proponent for the 1st part but are strongly against the 2nd (search \"skilled visa act\" and see who proposed this bill; have you heard of it? No? That's right because Democrats don't want you to know about it); \nDemocrats are not against the 1st part, but hugely support the 2nd part. \n\nNow if you want to pass something in the congress, you need bi-partisan support. Republicans have been advocating a [division of the bill](_URL_0_), but democrats won't agree because they know if the congress passes a bill with only the 1st part, there is no chance in the future we can witness the 2nd part to be passed. The result is legal, highly-skilled workers are disadvantaged by the illegal immigrants. \n\nAn interesting observation is, if you read media, or research about \"immigrants creating jobs\", or \"immigrants paying taxes\", or \"immigrants raise the average income of Americans\", you always see statistics of the group \"immigrants\" as a whole; you seldom see their research treating legal immigrants and illegals as two separate cohorts. For example: \"immigrant is welcome because he/she on average creates 5 jobs\", or \"50% of high-tech enterprises are founded by immigrants\"; but the fact is something like, \"legal immigrants creates 15 jobs on average\",\"legal immigrants create 50% of high-tech enterprises\", and there are a lot more illegals than legal immigrants in the States now. The Democrats will only tell you the first, but not the second. Simple algebra will tell you why. It is the definition of \"lying with statistics\". \n\nAnother interesting observation is, some republicans are actually for giving illegals \"permanent residence\" (this is what Reagan did in the past), but democrats insist a \"pathway to citizenship\"? You guess why. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_a_question"
]
] |
|
ay8oae
|
are the paternity tests used on the maury/jerry springer show completely fool proof or can they give false positives/negatives?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ay8oae/eli5_are_the_paternity_tests_used_on_the/
|
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"Not sure if you’ve watched the shows but usually they state the percentage of accuracy. It’s often like 90%-99%. So yeah, they’re giving an out that there is a chance that they are not the father. \n\nAlthough I believe there are some more in depth tests (not sure if these shows use them) that are really like 99%+ accurate so the chance of it being wrong in its choice is low. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2cw9ly
|
if i filled a lot of balloons with helium and put them in my car, would my car be lighter?
|
The same question both with windows all closed, and windows all open.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cw9ly/eli5_if_i_filled_a_lot_of_balloons_with_helium/
|
{
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"text": [
"Technically yes, but it would be such a tiny difference you wouldn't notice.",
"As long as the helium balloons are lighter than the surrounding air (they float up), and are exerting force on some way in the car, either pushing against the ceiling or are tied to the floor, your car will have less weight, but the same mass. \n\nIf your car weighs 1000 pounds, and the balloon is pushing up on the car so as to \"remove\" one pound, your car would weigh 999 pounds on a scale. However, if you hit something, going forward, you would still exert force of 1000 pounds on whatever you hit.\n\nThe windows don't matter. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
9v7cer
|
how to the us house of representative committee chairs get selected when a new party gains the house majority?
|
Do congresspeople already on that committee get to vote on their new leader? I'm seeing Tweets by people saying they already know who the new committee chairs will be but they don't explain how they know that.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9v7cer/eli5_how_to_the_us_house_of_representative/
|
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"text": [
"There's always a leader of the majority party and a leader of the minority party on the committee (the minority committee leader might be called the \"ranking member\" or \"vice-chair\". The leader of the majority party is the chair. If the other party takes over, they already have a leader ready to become the chair, unless that person has just retired or lost their election or something.",
"It’s done by seniority, the most senior member from each party is the leader on that specific committee. The chair is then decided by whichever party has a majority. ",
"The committee chair is the person of the majority party that’s been on that committee for the longest. Since none of the new members are going to be the longest-serving members on whatever committees they end up on, it’s easy to say who the committee chairs will be."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
dv3rop
|
why does a warm front moving into a cold area produce slow constant rain while a cold front moving into a warm area creates thunderstorms?
|
Honestly not sure what to flair this or how to explain it. But like how it’s cold after a summer storm during a hot day or how it gets warmer after a slow and steady rain?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dv3rop/eli5_why_does_a_warm_front_moving_into_a_cold/
|
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"text": [
"A warm front will be lighter and comes up over the cold air. It doesnt change much from before and that's why the rain is slow and constant.\nThe cold front coming in is low and dense. So it under the warm front and hurls the warm air upwards. This makes a lot of movement, aka a thunderstorm"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6sf8u6
|
why are lie detectors used during a police hiring process when they cannot be used in a court of law to determine someone's guilt?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sf8u6/eli5_why_are_lie_detectors_used_during_a_police/
|
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"Criminal trials require a higher standard of proof than pretty much anything else. If the government is going to lock someone up, then we want them to be absolutely certain that the person is guilty. On the other hand you wouldn't want someone who is even *probably* a bad person to become a police officer. ",
"It's an intimidation tactic. \n\nI made it through the LAPD hiring process, but didn't accept the offer. The lie detector was a big part of it. They use it to get you to admit things you wouldn't admit. \n\n\"You said you didn't do the thing.\"\n\"I didn't\"\n\"This says you did.\"\n\"I did\"\n\"You lied.\"\n\nIf you stick to your answers, you'll be fine. When I was going through the process, I had never, ever touched drugs, not even pot (today is a different story). They insisted I was lying about my drug use, which I knew full well I wasn't.",
"Former criminal defense lawyer here. \n\nPolygraph tests are nothing more than an excuse to get you into a room with a trained interrogator. While the results of the test (whether the machine says you were lying or not) cannot be used as evidence against you in a criminal trial, everything you say to the interrogator can be, and this includes before and after the test is conducted. \n\nFor example, if you submit to a polygraph, you'll typically have to fill out a questionnaire beforehand. You then go in and talk to the examiner about the questions. He/she might ask you to clarify or explain answers, help him \"understand\" what you mean by X, or Y, etc. \n\nThen, after the test, the examiner will go over the results with you. The examiner might say \"Oh, this answer here shows you were lying. Do you want to come clean about that? It will only help you.\" You get nervous, think you have to confess, so you do. Then you start confessing to everything else you ever did.\n\nAnd that's how the state gets evidence. Your confessions are admissible as evidence to prove your guilt. You just helped the state convict you of a crime. Congrats. \n\nGetting you to confess, and say anything against your interests that the prosecutor can use against you at trial is the entire point of the exercise. It has nothing to to with whether the machine is accurately judging your truthfulness. \n\nAs to hiring police officers, I don't have any first hand experience with that. ",
"Penn and Teller's show Bullshit covers the lie detector and even shows you how to beat it in season 7, episode 5, if y'all are interested.\n\nEdit: As the name would suggest, the show is for adults and thus contains adult language and, depending on the show, nudity. FYI.",
"Cops use it to falsely incriminate people or if they have a gut feeling and want them to crack.\n\nThey know they need them to admit if they have no evidence, and this is how you do it.",
"It's intimidation. Lie detectors aren't really useful for actually detecting lies and is mostly made up of pseudoscience. _URL_0_\n\nThe results are done for hiring because it's meant to pressure people into telling the truth. It can't be used in court because it doesn't really work.",
"To cheat the detector... \n\nThink of the most horrific experience when they ask you about something true like your name. \n\nThink of a serene thing when you lie. \n\nYou'll pass with flying colors. Maybe need a tad bit of practice.",
"Polygraph machines - like any 'biofeedback' device - can be wrong. Good liars can appear to be truthful, and very nervous but honest people can appear to be liars. It would be catastrophic if we allowed lie-detector results to be admissible in court. But employers are free to use them. I sold a retail business to a guy who polygraphed my staff, and fired most of them. I think he just wanted to bring in his own team, and was using it as an excuse. My staff were good people, and did not steal - I know because I checked frequently (using undercover \"shoppers,\" not polygraph).",
"Former LEO here.\n\nBottom line: it's a discriminator for applicants.\n\nLike someone else said, they put you in a room, ask you questions, and get you to either confess (lie about what you previously filled out, which will drop you from the hiring process) or give them an excuse not to hire you, if you stick to your story.\n\nExample: you pass all the preliminary screening, the PT test, the interview, etc. now comes the poly. There's just something about you they don't like, but they can't find a tangible excuse to not hire you. So they give you the poly and then say your results came back \"inconclusive.\"\n\n\"Look, we're not saying you lied, just the results were, 'inconclusive'.\"\n\nThis is typical at smaller depts with maybe only one opening and 15 applicants. They may think you look too young, or too old, or too white, or too female, but they can't *not* hire you for that. The poly gives the dept an out.\n\nObligatory \"this blew up\" edit:\n\nI'll try to get to everyone. I believe if you took the time to respond to me, I can take the time to respond to you. I'll do my best.\n\nJust some quick answers:\n\nLEO = law enforcement officer\n\nWhy do depts even do this and not just be \"straight shooters\" to applicants? .... I dunno, small town police depts are seeping in small town politics and probably don't want the drama. Or are saving money by avoiding a law suit... for another law suit. \n\n\"Too white\" ... congratulations to the 50% of you who got the joke.\n\nMy experience is in Small Town, USA. A few commenters are letting me know they're outside the US. ",
"FBI agent I know has never had a sip of alcohol or cigarette or any drug in his life. When hired he spent two hours on the polygraph being questioned about how this could be true. They simply could not believe that any 24 year old could have never have even sampled a legal or illegal drug. ",
"Lots of Rage Against the Machine answers here, but the actual answer is a lot simpler:\n\nPolygraphs are used to find potential 'evidence of deception'. It's not determinative of anything, but it clues an investigator into potential areas to explore further. So to that end, it makes sense in an employment context. \n\nThey are not used in court for a number of reasons: the shaky science and reliability of the machines, but also the general trend of not looking at \"quirks\", so to speak, to determine guilt/innocence. Is a witness stammering on the stand? Sweating? Fidgety? Jurors are now instructed to disregard those - one study found the only group who could reliably detect deception was Secret Service agents. Even judges were no better than chance at it. \n\ntl;dr the government's burden of proof is not satisfied by a defendant flunking a polygraph\n\nSource: lawyer with security clearance experience. ",
"It has been suggested that polygraphs are a social vetting system for a group think \"we like you\" having nothing really to do with the truth.",
"I was disappointed that Last Week Tonight recently had a piece about Border Control, mentioned polygraphs and how they'll be used more, even included them in their skit at the end to drive home points.. But they've previously done a piece about how they're crap and only work to intimidate people into confessing. Which doesn't reflect how they show it being used in their own skit.\n\nMr. Oliver, with respect, COME ON. You've already spoken, at length, about using fake information in a way that doesn't show it as fake and the resulting stupidity of the viewers that just trust it to be real. If you do it too, what hope do we have of people knowing the truth anymore?\n\nNot ELI5? I have a magic machine that tells me you're lying (I'm lying, it only tells me you got uncomfortable, I'll keep lying to get what I want from you), when you get nervous or scared I ask more questions about why until you tell me the truth. And Last Week Tonight does what they say not to.",
"A question, since I see people saying that it's a way to not hire someone (results of the poly are inconclusive or what have you): if you were not hired or fired and the stated reason was \"inconclusive\" polygraph results, could you sue?\n\nIf we know the results are unreliable, at best, clearly not hiring someone based on polygraph results is questionable, at best. Seems like it would break some labour law to use that as a factor at all!",
"Most of the time it is just an intimidation tactic, as stated previously. Many departments also use it as a way to check off a box in the \"we tried\" category, so they can claim to an outside observer that they did their best to eliminate bad apples in the hiring process. \n\nThere are police departments that use the polygraph as a backdoor method to eliminate candidates who they don't want because of some other reason. For example, a department that doesn't want to hire women, gays/ lesbians, ethnic minorities, or some other protected category will have an inexplicably large failure rate on the polygraph test by people from those groups. \n\nEdit: I un-autocorrected \"Downey\" to \"department\"",
"Well, not too sure about from the police officer perspective, but in the eyes of the court, since the polygraph is not 100% accurate, it is deemed too \"prejudicial\" to the defendant in any particular case. There are many variables that come into play, with regard to the polygraph, that result in inconsistencies. There's a reason why DNA evidence took so long to be admissible in court...\n\nLet's face it- if I'm a juror in a criminal case, and if I heard from the prosecution that the results of the polygraph were that there was a 70% chance the defendant was lying, that would tremendously sway opinions one way or another. The goal of the court system (when things are going correctly) is to prevent injustice, and the chances of that occurring by allowing the results of a polygraph into evidence is too great to allow it in. \n\nAs an aside, for anyone curious, this is the actual rule of evidence:\n\n*The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.*",
"I've taken 3 polygraphs. The defense attorney is absolutely correct in the assertion that it's to get you to speak to a trained interrogator. But with the hiring process of a department, there's a lot of subjectivity. This doesn't have to be admissible in court to prevent you from being hired. \n\nTL;DR, they ask non-response, control, and variable questions. For the full information:\n\nNon-response questions are things they know won't escalate your heart rate or breathing patterns (what is being measured by the chest and belly band and the heart rate monitor on your finger). \"Is your name really Forumordie? Are we currently in the state of Texas?\"These, they tell you, establish your \"baseline\" so they know what truthful responses look like. They'll likely also ask something like, \"Are you the queen of England\" and then state that the machine jumped and so now they have this pattern and they know when you lie. Basically total bullshit, but they're trying to convince you that the machine is a magi and it knows your soul\n\nControl questions are those things that they want you to lie about. \"Have you ever lied to avoid getting into trouble\". Of course you have. Everyone has. If you say \"Yes\", they'll likely dive deep into it, make it seem like a big deal, and ask you for every detail. The goal being to make you very nervous and spike all of those measurable bioindicators. They'll likely then come back and say, \"outside of the one instance you've told me about, have you ever lied to get out of trouble?\" Well the guy was just a dick, so now you're going to say \"No\". This is what they're actually measuring. Because of course you have. Your breathing pattern changes, your pulse raises, you're likely going to get clammy, and you're more than likely on camera. Now they know what it looks like when you lie. But, the important thing is, they don't give a shit about a control question's answers during this process, they're just looking for your bioindicator. \n\nThen there are the variable questions. These are the ones that matter. \"Have you ever done drugs that you didn't tell us about in the pre-polygraph questionnaire? Have you ever performed a sexual act with a minor? Have you ever stolen from an employer?\" At this point, they're looking for the control response in the variable question's answer.\n\nIn the end, it's about recognizing the tactics and controlling your response. Know that as soon as the machine is attached to you, you've started. It's measuring everything immediately. I have a beat in my head for breathing. \"1-2-3 in, 1-2-3 out\". It keeps you calm, focused on something other than your nerves, and it keeps a consistent breathing pattern. When you notice a control question, fluctuate that pattern. \"1-2 in pause, 1-2-3-4 out/ 1-2 in 1-2 out\". It slightly affects your pulse and the breathing changes. Just don't overdo it. \n\nA long(er than this post ended up being) read is in the link. It's got a lot of history behind it as well as reasons why it's not Court admissible. Hope this helps. [The Lie Behind the Lie Detector](_URL_0_) ",
"There is a recent This American Life about a guy who is in jail for teaching people how to reliably pass a polygraph: _URL_0_",
"My dad was a police officer part time for years, as well as a marriage and family therapist. He actually advised against ever agreeing to a polygraph because they can be caused to spike and read as a lie by anxiety over the question. So like, you may establish a baseline of anxiety, but most people get upset by being accused of committing a crime. The polygraph may spike enough to be a \"lie\" in a reading because you got super anxious or upset. So, yea, not a good reason to send someone to jail. Really unreliable. Also, if you have good control of emotional/biological response, it can show a false negative. And a lot of jurors think polygraphs are magic 100% foolproof even when they're told otherwise.\n\nHowever, it would be a good way to see how an officer responds to stress! And see how you respond to intimidating situations. It's a more subtle way to test than field training. So that could be why.",
"I had a friend go through this during the hiring process at one PD. They accused him of \"cheating the machine\" and told him tell them what he was lying about. He stuck to his answers and was failed.",
"[Here's a pretty good This American Life about just that](_URL_0_) the guy used to administer polygraphs but then turned around and tried to help people beat them once he realized the harm he was doing. Pretty interesting stuff. ",
"All they test is if you are nervous or not. Police and LEO don't want nervous nellies so yeah, they kind of work. Except they don't do well at identifying sociopaths which they should sort out with other tests.",
"Well keep in mind they don't work as lie detectors. They are glorified intimidating heart rate monitors. ",
"Fun fact:\n\n > William Marston, the inventor of the polygraph, was also the\noriginator of the Wonder Woman cartoons. Wonder Woman used a “lasso of truth” to force people to stop lying. \n\nFrom my Intro to Psychology book.",
"To try and ferret out the dishonest. The actual test is a joke, tbh, but your reactions to it's results are what they are looking for.\n\nYour comparison is funny as well. Just like a Jury, the best story wins, true or not, when speaking to police in matters that are convoluted such as domestic abuse, sex crimes,etc.",
"I was required to take one for my job. It really blew my mind that the place I took it had an entire department of people dedicated to polygraphs. The \"technician\" running my machine wasn't thrilled that I told him up front I think the entire thing is BS and I was shocked it's still used in any official capacity. But hey, he asked. It's nothing more than an interrogation tactic used to make you confess shit you wouldn't have admitted to. Just like a cop saying \"Do you know why I pulled you over?\" \n \nAlways stick to your answers, especially if you have filled out any questionnaires they have access too (such as an SF86). \nAlso, never tell the cop that you were speeding, texting and getting road head when all he pulled you over for was a broken tail-light.",
"Polygraphs aren't good at actually detecting lies, but they're good at getting people to tell the truth out of fear that they'll get caught if they lie.",
"Like detectors don't work. It was originally created to study plants. According to a zucchini always lies. \n\nIt's a tactic that is both trying to get the truth and make sure you can stick to your guns. Don't worry about it. Just stick to your answers ",
"I had two polygraphs over the course my career. The technicians couldn't even get accurate readings on the control questions (name, date of birth, etc.). \n\nIt was \"SUCH AN IMPORTANT TEST\"! I couldn't possibly do government contracting without it. \n\nBut then they couldn't confirm that I was being truthful when stating my own name. They also couldn't confirm I was lying. What a crappy test.",
"Love+Radio podcast did an excellent episode on Doug Williams, a former police polygraphist who quit his job when he realized polygraphs were bullshit and dedicated his life to fighting against them. He's testified in courtrooms and before Congress. He got a really interesting story and was actually thrown in federal prison for two years because of his (marginally questionable) activism. He was released last month. \n \n_URL_0_",
"First, a polygraph is not a \"lie detector.\" It's exactly what it says it is: It records (-graph) a variety (poly-) of biological stimiuli (heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, skin conductivity, etc.). Those are recorded while you are asked questions, and someone interprets the polygraph data to see if there are changes when certain questions were asked or answers given. \n\nWhen you're in a court of law, and the standard of guilt is \"beyond reasonable doubt,\" and the polygraph doesn't really PROVE anything other than \"when asked this question, the subject's pulse quickened.\" It doesn't really say WHY. It can't. \n\nBut interviewers don't need that \"beyond a reasonable doubt\" standard. Really they don't need any standard. An employer can deny an applicant for literally any reason short of discrimination based on race, religion, creed, disability and military service (and maybe some other thing, based on state law). So if an employer thinks that polygraphs and their interpreters are say, 80% reliable... then the employer can decide that the overall results are worth the 1 in 5 wrong results. \n\nThere's also the chance of intimidating away people who feel they are unlikely to pass a polygraph... which is more likely than not to be people who feel that they would be disqualified.\n\nTL;DR: Polygraphs do not meet reasonable doubt, and employers don't need to either. ",
"The prosecutor did a great job of stating how they are used in criminal prosecution. \nWhich is basically to confuse people into changing their stories to prosecute them on the basis of those muddled statements. \n\nDon't ever willing do a polygraph.\n\nHeres why:\n\nThey do not actually measure lies from truths. They measure the autonimic responses from a subject during questioning. Its a construct validity error, that is confounded by the fact that those autonimic measurements never take into account that they react to a vast myriad of other stimuli. Their accuracy is extremely blown out of proportion by those why \"beleive\" in the practice, because they continue to confirm thier own results with convictions and false truths. The current meta analysis of lie detection data shows that their have been over the decades no actual reliability or validity in all of the proponant literature about lie detection. It is a pseudoscientific practice at this point. \n\nThe reason these organizations continue to use them is they are highly alluring conceptual machines, though completely in effective, and they are much much cheaper than doing thorough background checks. Those who use them also seek out proponant literature to back up thier use of the devices. Dispite the overwhelming body of evidence against thier use.\n\nHeres the APA's oppinion on the matter: \"There is no evidence that any pattern of physiological reactions is unique to deception.\"\n\nThey, simply put, do not work, but people want to believe they do so they keep using them because they are cheap and can be used to coerce people into false confessions and confabulation.\n\n(Psych Major/ currently working in field of behavioral analysis)",
"A skilled examiner can get quite a bit from a polygraph.\n\nWhen I was at fort Jackson several of us got selected to go to the school where they train federal agents to administer polygraphs. It was pretty interesting. They basically gave is a thumb drive and had us install a virus on a computer. Then hooked us up to a polygraph and had the trainee try to figure out what we did wrong. Everyone who tried any of the bullshit methods of beating the tests would get called out by the main instructor. They may not be able to determine exactly what you did, but they can clearly tell if someone is doing something to be deceptive. If they know you're being deceptive, even if they don't know the reason for it, that's still an issue for concern. ",
"It works because you think it works. They ask questions that you're on the fence about telling the truth on, and when pressured, you buckle and fess up.\n\nThey're used on cops for a series of reasons: (1) the same reason you do it in criminal investigations -- to get the truth out of people, (2) to see if you're smart enough to know when to shut up, since blabbermouths and the handling of private information or evidence that is non-disclosable don't mix, and (3) to see if you understand \"the game\" that is investigating crime.\n\nIt's the best way to test intelligence, street smarts, and patience all at once. If you pass, you're either clean enough to make it, or know how to shut up enough to be trusted. If you spill the beans about railing coke off of a prostitute's taint in college with the slightest pressure, will you be able to keep serious and life-or-death information regarding an investigation secret when reporters harass you, let alone your spouse, kids, or family friends start asking for the inside scoop? The answer is usually \"no.\" \n\nPlus, you don't want naive goody-two-shoes on the street dealing with criminal elements. If you're easily manipulated in an interview, you can be easily manipulated on the beat.",
"It is actually not really definitive evidence like a video tape, it is just math (I give a super simple example below).\n\nThe poly is decently good at telling if someone lies, though it is really shoddy at determining if someone is telling the truth. For this reason, it is good for law enforcement, particularly if you have a good polygraph tester that can ask the right questions to limit accidental false-positives.\n\nYou see, *sometimes* the polygraph can give a bad result, indicating you are a bad guy even though you're a good guy. But it *rarely* says you're a good guy even though you're actually a bad guy.\n\nLike, a good guy says he has never had the thought (s)he should rape someone (machine gives a positive, if he or she **is** telling the truth this positive was about 35% to 50% chance of happening, but a lie is 90% of this happening). Now the interviewer ought to follow this up with if they know anyone (including themselves) who raped someone (machine gives a positive, now it is a 12.3% to 25% they told the truth both times). Did they rape someone (machine registers a positive again, 4.3% to 12.5% chance they have told the truth this entire time).\n\nWe now know that they have a small chance of having told the truth this entire time, so what do we make of this? If they lied even once in the response, then they're not following the rules and shouldn't be on the force. Perhaps they told the truth on the first and third question, and they had no criminal intent themselves, but then they lied on the second question and shouldn't be on the force. If they lied on the first question, and the second and third were false-positives, then they probably shouldn't be on the force because of extreme criminal intent in their history. Definitely the same reasoning for the third question being a lie.\n\nSometimes you just get bad luck on the polygraph test and you really did tell the truth and got false-positives each time. They ought to give you a second test. If the second test comes back bad, you're likely a bad guy or the test is incapable of determining your truth/lie screening, which ultimately is safer for the police or FBI etc to fail you than it is to let an unknown into the force.\n\nCourts don't allow forced polygraph tests, IIRC, because the Constitution protects a defendants right to not self-incriminate.\n\nCourts DO allow voluntary polygraph tests, because they are voluntarily providing evidence that could be incriminating.\n\nCrime testing is different. We aren't trying to determine if we have a good guy, we are trying to determine if we have a bad guy. Determining if we have a bad guy is harder. More often than not, the test is used to get the person to confess to the crime rather than to prove they did it. As I said before, we can get false-positives a lot (35% to 50% of the time). If they lied, there is only a 2% to 10% chance it will come back as a false-negative (registering a truth). So when the lie is detected, you grill them on it to try tricking them into thinking you now 'know' they did whatever it is, and if they really didn't then they'll of course stick with their story and probably won't spike a positive on all the other related questions to the crime.\n\nTL;DR: The poly for LEO is different application than from crime. It tests the probability someone lied on bad questions to lie about. The purpose is like a water filter, sometimes it traps good clean water from passing but it almost never lets bad dirty water get through. We don't ever want bad dirty water to get through, so we sacrifice some good clean water sometimes.\n\nIn the case of crime, we actually are trying to avoid trapping good clean water, so it is a different ball game.",
"So, I just had to take a polygraph test last week for the military. I asked the NCIS agent your same question. In a huff he replied \"They're admissible in 33 states.\" I think it irked him a little. ",
"*Why are lie detectors used during a police hiring process when they cannot be used in a court of law to determine someone's guilt?*\nBecause what rights employees ever had have been eroded. I won't take a polygraph, I won't agree to a credit check. If employees start insisting on their rights, especially now with a shortage of good candidates, employers won't get away with this crap. They need you as much as you need them. ",
"Never take a lie detector test. There is zero reason to agree with taking one for a criminal charge. None. Zero. \n\nAs for a work requirement. Ask yourself, do you really want to work at a place that would place you in a situation that your whole life can be ruined by a test not allowed in court?? Imagine you have a family, mortgage and other responsibilities. Now imagine you take this test during your employment. Sure you passed it a few times before, but now even though you are not lying, it says it in inconclusive. You are suspended or fired. If you can't find a job quickly, you fall behind on bills and other responsibilities. Wife/husband leaves you. Your homeless. Before you know it, you are turning tricks behind a 7/11. \n\nNo reason at all to take that test or work someplace that expects you to. ",
"In a court of law you need evidence that suggests the person on trial is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.\n\nResearch has proven that in about 1/2 of the cases, the lie detector says the person is lying when they are in fact, telling the truth. As such its still usefull because it adds a psychological effect to the interrogation, but the results can't be taken as absolute truth, given the 50% error margin they have which is massive. So due to a very high chance of the result being flawed, the result on its own is not allowed as proof.\n\nThey can scare off people that dont know this, and the added pressure and stress may cause people to admit things they wouldnt have admitted otherwise. I assume thats why they use it in police hiring.\n\nAlso for the sake of completion, they are also not foolproof the other way, its possible to pass the test while lying your ass off too.",
"I don't know how american police force screening goes but to call a lie detector to be able to 'detect lies' is in itself a lie - the most it can do is be used to detect a shift in your biorhymtic signals, and not only it's unable to specify what emotion caused that shift but also that 'lying' isn't an emotion but rather a complex mental process that doesn't just involve being nervous (sometimes, doesn't involve at all as some individuals can control their rhytmes to fool a lie detector). ",
"They are good enough to give somebody an opportunity but not good enough to take opportunity away.",
"Not accurate enough to put someone in jail, you need to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt, which polygraphs are not. However for job hiring there are no such limitations. Most of the time it just intimidates people into being honest anyways, but sometimes the machine is just wrong and it sucks for the person who doesnt get hired. Still, you only take them for police and cleared jobs, and Id rather them exclude a few good people than let in more dishonest people. ",
"They can often cause people to tell the truth because pop culture teaches that lie detectors are always right. In reality they are far from perfect and basically useless. A person with only a small amount of practice can make a polygraph say they being truthful while lying and make it say you're lying when telling truth.\n\nSome places use them because the general public doesn't know how useless polygraphs really are and will admit to things they otherwise wouldn't. They are not admissible in court in more places because a polygraph saying you were lying really could just mean you were nervous, worried, ill, or tons of other things that could make your vitals weird. Which surprise surprise people being by police tend to be nervous or worried even if innocent. ",
"Have you ever taken drugs?\n\nHave you ever taken illegal drugs?\n\nHow many joints have you smoked?\n\nHow many parties do you go to?\n\nDo other people smoke marijuana at those parties?\n\nIf you were at a party and a friend offered you a joint, would you take it?\n\nWhat do you tell your friends when that happens?\n\n... And so on for a dozen more questions.",
"It's a game of good cop / bad cop. The examiner is the good cop, the \"lie detector\" is the bad cop. Good cop befriends the subject and effectively says things like:\n\n\"look buddy I really want to believe you, but Officer Polygraph here says you're holding something back. You just need to give me something small to satisfy Officer Polygraph then you can get out of here\" ",
"I saw a public statement from the feds on why they use lie detector tests for things like security clearances, when the lie detector is basically just a load of bullshit. Paraphrasing it, they basically said\n\n1) It tends to make people admit to things they've done in the past. If they admit to it, the part that counts is the admission, not the lie detector test. (So basically it's the same as sitting you with a hot lamp until you talk).\n\n2) It tends to make people who did \"things\" in the past not apply, since they think they'll be found out. The fact that they probably wouldn't (based on the test alone) doesn't matter.\n\n3) It tends to make people who have passed one and may have to do another NOT do \"things\" since they think they'll be found out on the next test. The fact that they probably wouldn't (based on the test alone) doesn't matter.",
"I believe it is to qualify an applicants ability to lie properly and well under pressure. Lying is the most used police tool, more even than handcuffs or gloves. Of course it will help them filter out other undesirables too; but honest/moral people or bad liars are out...",
"Lawyer here. I've been involved with a number of cases in which the accused sat for a lie detector test at the investigation stage but those test results were not admitted to the jury (or other \"fact finder\", e.g. the judge in a bench trial). \n\nSo in the US, the trial judge is considered the \"gatekeeper\" in terms of whether to allow in certain pieces of evidence. Evidence can be denied entry for a number of different reasons (e.g. hearsay, not authentic, overly prejudicial, or just plane irrelevant). When it comes to lie detectors, that falls into a category of \"expert testimony\" because the average lay person can't really provide the amount of foundation and knowledge relative to a lie detector test. I mean, we've all seen movies and TV shows, but we aren't experts in the legal sense. \n\nSo in 1993, along comes a Supreme Court case called Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (_URL_0_). So Daubert pretty much set the standard for trial judges' determinations about whether or not to allow in expert evidence and overturned the prior standard under Frye v. US. The Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Rules of Evidence trumped the prior standard in Frye and in doing so set up a series of factors a trial court should consider when determining whether to allow in expert evidence. \n\nLie detectors probably fall into the category of not exactly scientifically valid because of the lack of acceptable reliability. Because lie detectors aren't really valid under the Daubert standard, they don't come in at the trial stage. ",
"I've taken 3 for Fire Department jobs. It's usually said that it's a way to hire \"honest\" people. But in reality it's used to weed through all the applicants. What they really want to find is confident people who aren't scared of something that worries most people, like say a polygraph. ",
"[Here's a short writeup by a scientist for lawyers on why not to trust the polygraph.](_URL_0_) From the article:\n > The polygraph cannot assess lying per se, but instead assesses emotion that can arise when specific questions are asked. As such, a verdict of \"guilty\" or \"lying\" is best interpreted as \"emotionally aroused\" or \"anxious.\"\n\nmore:\n > More recently, an ad-hoc committee of the American Polygraph Association published a survey of field polygraph results, including more than 45 published samples and 11,000 examinations, and reported overall accuracy of 89.6%, but only after excluding 23.5% of cases with indeterminate verdicts. Unfortunately, more than half the samples came from articles of the lead investigator, and all suffered from the inherent selection bias: to wit, cases selected for inclusion in a field study are biased in favor of demonstrating accuracy because **the associated confessions are not independent but a consequence of the polygraph exam.**",
"A really interesting podcast on how inaccurate they are. Great story, quick listen. _URL_0_",
"Everyone here seems to just be taking it in their stride that, oh yeah sure, potential police officers are given polygraphs, that's totally standard procedure. Wtf? They actually do this? Is this an American thing? Do they do that here in the UK too? I've never heard of it being done, not even in pop culture or TV shows. Am I the only one who's never heard of police departments doing this?",
"Former LEO. I have taken multiple polygraphs and voice stress analayzers (CVSA) over the years. I was employeed with three separate departments ranging from 30 cops up to 2,000. All the lie detector test are utter bullshit. As others have stated it's more of a \"gotcha\" tool to see if you will lie during the testing, and only really then by admitting you lied. Stick to your guns and you'll be alright. I could always see what the problem was internally with the department that I was applying by the nature of the questions. One focused on theft, another on sexual harassment, another on drug use. It's more of an applicant wash out tool than anything. I was never 100 percent truthful and passed every time. It really opened my eyes on how much of a joke these tests are. ",
"At my firm, we have criminal defendants take them from a well-like private polygraph analyst. If they pass, it often helps get charges dropped in cases where prosecutors aren't excited in the first place about moving ahead. \n\nIt never dissuades the police. They don't let the truth get in the way of what their theory of the case is on any level.",
"I had to do a polygraph for a firefighter position. They want to see if you answer truthfully compared to a questionnaire or your background packet. Also, they they can see if you flip flop....accusing you of lying. ",
"There was a story on This American Life about a polygraph expert that basically got it to be removed from everyday use for hiring. It was a great episode.\nHis main beef was that so many people fail because they are nervous. But also a trained person can beat it with ease.\n\nI think this is it:\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"I was on probation for a sex crime for over a decade. One of the things that is unique about sex crime probation, at least in my state, is that you have to take a polygraph test once a year ($300 out of your own pocket).\n\nThe polygraph mainly focused on if you were following the rules of your probation, things like, \"have you had alcohol?\" or \"have you viewed any pornography?\". A polygraph usually won't ask more than three meaningful questions per session. They also ask three meaningless questions, and three questions that calibrate what a lie looks like. Sometimes it's four, but usually only three of each type.\n\nThey go over these questions before they start, because they need you to feel anxiety about the specific questions you plan to lie about.\n\nThe trick is, the three meaningless questions are the ones that they tell you are the calibration questions. Things like \"Is your name _____?\" or \"Do you live in (city)?\" They tell you that these are calibration questions, because they know you are telling the truth, and can therefore get a reading on what truth looks like, but this is a lie.\n\nThe actual calibration questions are the ones they will refer to as something like \"general honesty questions\". These are questions that almost no one could confidently answer \"no\" to. Things like \"have you ever lied to your mother?\". They will go out of their way to emphasize how important it is that you are honest on these questions, to make sure you feel like you are lying when these questions come up. That gives them the actual point of comparison for the questions they actually care about.\n\nThe simple trick to passing one of these is to give a stronger reaction on the \"general honesty questions\" than on the questions they actually care about. This is very easy to do. Just breath very steadily when they ask the important questions (have you had any alcohol since your last polygraph?), and let your breath \"catch\" momentarily right after they ask you the \"general honesty\" questions. The hard part is figuring out which questions are which.\n\nThe thing is, it is easy to fail one of these without lying. If you happen to be completely confident you have never lied to your mother, or about whatever \"general honesty\" calibration questions they ask, then that will throw off their point of comparison. Hence, it's super important to know how to pass a lie detector test, regardless of if you plan to lie.",
"I think it's apart of \"security theater\". The polygraph isn't a real test, just an illusion used to try and trip up dumb people ",
"Many moons ago, had a summer job working for a large surf clothing company. We would unload the boxes of finished shirts, shorts, pants, etc.that came from the independent contractors, sort them by item numbers and quality control. Many of the young guys would slip rejected items into their lunch boxes after a shift and take them home...so I had heard. Anyway, the news came down that those of us who were summer temps would be taking a lie detector test. Many quit, or just did not show up, except for myself and my friend Larry. We arrive at the offices where they test was to take place....Larry went first, guy was nervous as all hell because he had almost the complete summer fashions, size medium, in his closet at home.\n\nHe failed.....I passed with flying colors. When the questioner asked me something that I knew I could not be truthful about...example, \" are you aware of any employees pilfering rejects\", I would imagine the whole sequence of catching a wave....paddling hard to catch, jumping up, dropping down the face, cutting hard at the bottom, slashing off the crest...just going through the whole surf session in my mind.\n\nLarry did not get fired, he said he lied because he just did not want to get anybody else in trouble.I was asked to oversee the summer help the rest of that year.\n\nBottom line, I don't believe in lie detectors because I lied through my teeth, passed, and was promoted. :)",
"Is there a way to take a polygraph for my own personal reasons? Like seeing if I'm good at lying. Preferably in a room with bright lights and no windows and an intense black man with a mustache grilling me. I'll pay more if he has a cigar.",
"I took a lie detector for an agency once that supposedly found something wrong with my answers. I had just gotten back from being overseas in a combat zone (this is important to note). I answered everything honestly. I told them things I wouldn't tell my priest. I also got into an argument with the person giving the test over what is stealing and what isn't. When I was asked the dollar amount of everything I had stolen in my life I said $1000. I was 30 years old and thinking all the way back to stealing crayons in kindergarten to eating free meals at a pizza shop I managed that wasn't authorized. The polygraph examiner told me that none of that counted and the dollar amount I gave would disqualify me. After 15-20 minutes of arguing whether or not taking a pen from work and not returning it is stealing (I said it was) the examiner asked me if I could agree to $400 IF we didn't include the pens, copy paper, crayons and meals. I responded (verbatim) \"If this moves us along then yes\". The examiner immediately followed that statement with \"But if we did include those things how much would it be?\" At this point I could tell this guy was out to fail me. I told him that I didn't like the way he was using questions and then he started in on the serious stuff. \nHim:\"Have you ever attempted to harm someone with the intent of taking their life?\"\nMe: Yes\nHim: \"Care to explain?\" \nMe: \"I'm a Marine and just got done with back to back tours in Iraq.\"\nHim: \"That doesn't count.\"\nMe: \"It does by my sense of morals.\"\nHim (honest to god): \"I'm not hear to determine morality or ethics, just criminal behavior.\"\nMe: \"To me that is the same thing.\"\nIt only got worse from there. I spent over 2 hours arguing with this guy. The next day I get a call from a detective informing me that there was a problem with my polygraph and wanted to know if we could talk about it in person. I left work early and went to meet with him and was informed that the examiner stated that he believed I had been involved in something in Iraq that I didn't want to talk about (i.e. war crimes) and they should look into me further. I told them that there was definitely a lot that I didn't want to talk about regarding my time over there because it was a fucked up situation to be in I didn't care to speak to a stranger about the worst experiences of my life. I also informed him that everything I did was above board and ethical, including going toe to toe with someone 2 pay grades higher than me to stop them from abusing Iraqi nationals. Long story short, I was offered a position and accepted it. I also put in over 10 years of good service to that department. \n\nMoral of the story: Polygraph's are bullshit. They use them to weed out people they don't like but don't have reason to turn away.",
"They're reliable enough to help judge someone's character but not reliable enough to decide whether or not someone should be locked away for life or murdered",
"It's to be sure the cops can lie under pressure. If they fail the poly, they can't be trusted to lie on official docs.",
"Scientifically they do not meet the incontrovertible proof required in a criminal prosecution. However, in civil matters, the burden of proof is much lower allowing lie detectors to be used ",
"So as somebody who has undergone a poly, as long as your acts aren't blatantly illegal than they will put you along the path towards being hired. I passed my poly, felt like a bag of shit afterwards, than went on to a psych evaluation. I was too young and had no life experience. \n\nThat's where I failed. The poly didn't fail me, the psych evaluation did. So saying that the poly is just a way to weed out people they don't like isn't exactly true. That's what the entire process is for after all. Not just the poly. And trust me, when you lie and you are on that machine, you can feel the physiological changes and it seems pretty damn obvious you are lying.\n\nOn another note. If you aren't lying and your heart rate spikes it than they will ask you control questions like. \"Do you live in _____? , Do you eat food?\" Stuff like that.\n\nSo while it's not enough information for persecution I do believe without a doubt it will tell if most people are lying.",
"[This American Life had a terrific episode about lie detectors.](_URL_0_) You might be interested.",
"as someone who researched and built these devices for a job... simply because they are bullshit and most the only reason they \"work\" at all is that most people think they do, thereby getting anxious. They aren't lie detectors at all, they measure acute changes in your \"anxiety\" levels. These can easily be faked during true statements, and you can meditate or relax on false statements and it will throw the devices off. \n\nBottom line, they are bullshit, but most people don't realize this and even if they do they aren't trained enough to evoke the same reactions (some of which are part of the autonomous nervous system, which isn't directly controllable consciously or at least with out practice) by will.",
"They are not used in court because they are worthless. They are absolute smoke and mirrors. Any polygrapher will tell you they are a \"tool\". They are a tool to get guilty people to feel as though the lies they \"may\" tell will be ferreted out. It is absolute junk science of the highest order. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nThe lie detector is pseudo science. Right up there with tossing people in lakes and if they died they were innocent but if you survived you were a witch. ",
"Freshly hired with the Harris county sheriff's office here. \n\nI saw others mention it is used as a way to get you to talk or as way to not hire you if they don't like you. Which is possible, but there is also the fact that it is a buffer. People who are questionable might not even apply if they think skeletons from their closet might come out. ",
"Anything to help screen out bad cops before they get union membership is ok in my books. I'm not concerned about the courts reluctance to rely on them. We absolutely must do all we can to prevent liars and abusers from becoming cops. ",
"I know I'm a bit late, but my $0.02 is this:\n\nPolys for police hiring processes are simply a test to see how you will fare under intense questioning. It's a simulation of how you will do on a witness stand in court. \n\nIf you EVER waver or change an answer, you're done. You're not a credible witness. They can't use you. \n\nSo even if you told the 100% truth the whole time, they'll say you lied about X or Y and ask if you want to change anything or add anything and what have you. They're looking to see whether you will stick to your guns, more or less. ",
"I work Internal Affairs and part of that deals with hiring public safety applicants. My department won't disqualify anyone for failing the polygraph alone. \n\nGenerally speaking I think being told you're getting a polygraph tends to make people get a little more honest with their answers during my interview. I don't do the polygraph myself, that's all handled via independent contractors that have no motivation to my knowledge to even attempt to fail a person without cause. \n\nMy department is very understanding that people have a past, have chosen to experiment with drugs and occasionally have even been arrested and still get jobs. The key is being honest. If you're lying now, odds are you will be lying later. \n\nThat lying thing continues to be a major thing during your employment. Speaking from my experience, nothing makes internal affairs investigators more motivated to nail an employee to the wall than lying or being corrupt in general. I take it very personal when someone brings discredit to themselves and to the department I've chosen to represent. \n\nJust my two cents on the matter. \n",
"Watch Adam Ruins everything on polygraph tests, it helps understand their validity pretty well. ",
"It's only real function is to see if people are open to manipulation. If they can get you to change your answer you probably don't have the nerves to be a cold logical hardened tool through which the law is enforced.\n\nI saw an interesting movie that once illustrated this concept with potential jury and candles. The man speaking to the jury members tells them his wife thinks the candle smells like vanilla, but he thinks it's sandalwood. He has them smell the unscented candle and some of them claim vanilla, sandalwood, or no scent.",
"I've taken polygraphs. Passed two, failed one. Lied on one of the passes. Its all bull shit. \"Are you nervous? Why are you reacting?\" You could lie and pass and tell truth and fail. \n\nIts bull shit cold reading backed up by a little bit of physiological response. Yes, people get nervous when they lie. People also get nervous when they think that you think they are lying and are going to face trouble because of it. ",
"Polygraphs don't work at all. In fact the creator of the polygraph William Moulton Marston coincidentally the creator of Wonder Woman as well later re-examined the polygraph and realized it didn't work and attempted to convince people that it wasn't valid. Unfortunately, the myth of the polygraph had blown out of proportion. \n\nThe only reason police still use polygraphs today is that most criminals aren't very smart so it's easier to make them think that the polygraph will find something so that they'll get people to confess. The other reason companies use polygraphs is honestly to discriminate against people who they don't like during the hiring process for certain jobs. They can't just say you're too old, young, Black, Hispanic etc. because then they've opened up themselves to be sued ",
"Lie detectors are useless. They measure stuff like sweat, heartbeat etc which sounds good on paper, but when you think of it its absolute stupidity.\n\nIf a cop is asking you if you killed [Insert Name Here] you will obviously become nervous, worried that you might be imprisoned falsely. Also there are literally classes to learn how to lie and make the polygraph say it's true.\n\nAmerica please, stop using it.",
"Courts have ruled that the accuracy of polygraph tests are uncertain and results established from a polygraph test are unduly prejudicial and thus not admissible. \n\nIn other words, the results can't be trusted so a jury is not allowed to consider it as evidence",
"In the process for hiring now:\n\nGenerally....it's because a massive number of people disclose that they were lying on their questionnaires. Major lies. The best example is my criminal justice professor, a former sheriff's deputy who did backgrounds has an anecdote of a guy (who was cleared in every way) admitting to child porn. \n\nMost \"lies\" aren't that big and are closer to fibs that we all generally say in other job applications. A lot is \"I said I had never done drugs, but in fact did experiment in high school once or twice.\" Automatic DQ. Or \"I actually did get fired from that high school job a decade ago even though I said I didn't.\" The majority of polygraph DQ's are for admitting to things that, had they been previously disclosed, would have been zero issue.\n\nThe other reason is they can also mess with you. Grill you. Play mind games. Accuse you of lying. It can serve as a quasi-personality test: is this a guy who can be even tempered under pressure? A guy who gives a concise, straight to the point answer and stick with it. \n\nI'll fully admit, I understand the negative pressures and externalities involved. A true sociopathic person will pass. Or even a guy whose rationalized anything in his past he hasn't disclosed. There's a lot of debate about them. I've met a lot of cops that don't like that we still do them, they tend to weed out good, honest candidates that simply got a little bit stressed in whats essentially a job interview. But most departments have enough \"we were probably going to hire this star candidate until he admitted to lying about ever doing cocaine\" that they can keep justifying their use. ",
"I don't know if you do but watch Jon Oliver. In his latest episode of Last Week Tonight he profiled US Customs and Border Patrol and their hiring surge in the aftermath of September 11th and how their lax employment practices led them to hiring some pretty unqualified candidates. He also discusses how a polygraph test can out certain things that people are trying to hide. One dude who was polygraphed admitted up to waking up in a blood soaked room with no idea of what happened. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/nyDMoGjKvNk"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf"
],
[
"https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/618/transcript"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/618/mr-lie-detector?act=0#act-0"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://loveandradio.org/2017/06/relevant-questions/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/509/579.html"
],
[],
[
"http://jallen.faculty.arizona.edu/sites/jallen.faculty.arizona.edu/files/John%20Allen%20in%20The%20Writ%21.pdf"
],
[
"https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/618/mr-lie-detector"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/618/mr-lie-detector"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/618/mr-lie-detector"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyDMoGjKvNk"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
8nt7g5
|
why is the air outside a plane in the sky so cold yet the air on the ground is warmer if heat rises and the plane is closer to the sun?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8nt7g5/eli5_why_is_the_air_outside_a_plane_in_the_sky_so/
|
{
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"dzy48jd",
"dzy4c0u",
"dzy4c56"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Due to the way our atmosphere works, for every 1000 feet you travel up the temperature goes down 4 degrees , based around the temperature on the ground.\nAs you can do mentally the air gets cold fast.\nThere are also different layers to the atmosphere as well with different temperature effects.\n\nAlthough for explainlikeimfive this answer should work ",
"Because lower layers of the atmosphere are more dense.\n\nThink of why its warmer under the covers when it's cold in your house. Your body produces heat but it stays under the covers instead of rising to the ceiling. The atmosphere works similarly",
"Air is thinner higher up. Heat from the sun is radiating heat. The light and heat travel through the vacuum of space and only once they hit something does it warm up.\n\nSo sun's heat hits the ground and warms the air closest to the ground first. The thinner the air the less the molecules bounce off each other so the less heat they can hold. So the higher thinner atmosphere is affected less than the denser air closer to the ground.\n\nNow as the heat rises it looses it energy. So it doesn't rise all the way up. It cools and begins to fall. This effect is best seen in water. In dams you can see a line where hot and cold water separates."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1y8pnq
|
why do felines move their shoulders when they're about to attack?
|
For instance, when a lioness is hunting and is about to run after its prey, she lays low to the ground and her "shoulders" (I'm missing a better word for those bones) move up and down. I've seen this behavior in domestic cats as well. Why is that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y8pnq/eli5_why_do_felines_move_their_shoulders_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfidgyt"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"She's tensing her shoulders up for the pounce."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4kg98w
|
is there a biological/chemical explanation for the physical pain of heartbreak?
|
More like explain like I've only had one semester of college chem and bio because I'm an engineering major.
Right now I have a physical pain in my chest and a difficulty breathing. Just because I've learned I'm not going to see a girl for a few weeks, which is objectively not a very big deal, I'm experiencing physical discomfort which outweighs my even my emotional response. What kind of biological processes are going on within my body? Why is there pain in the chest and gut specifically? What kind of signal has my brain sent to my body and why?
Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kg98w/eli5_is_there_a_biologicalchemical_explanation/
|
{
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"d3epabx",
"d3ezj3r",
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"score": [
36,
19,
2,
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],
"text": [
"I don't know enough to go in to a ton of detail here, but it usually is some type of anxiety reaction. Anxiety often aggravates GI system. Stomach and heart share some nerves. So chest pain could be due to that (e.g. it is often for people to go to the ER thinking they are having a heart attack when they are just having heartburn/acid reflux). Also, anxiety can cause palpitations. This can cause \"chest pain\" and can also cause more anxiety which can start a cyclic reaction between anxiety-palpitations, etc.",
"ELI5: being around loved ones makes you happy, being away from them makes you sad. The more you love them the sadder you get when they're away. But it goes away over time.\n\nELI16:\n\nThere are likely many contributing factors, one of which would be oxytocin withdrawal.\n\nOxytocin is a neurotransmitter released when we're around or think about loved ones positivity, especially if physical contact is involved. When separated for long periods (or when thinking about it) your levels of oxytocin can plumit leading to withdrawal symptoms.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Its all evolutionary, as humans the partner becomes vital when your brain identifies someone as such, losing them will cause pain, the pathways for emotional pain are the same in the brain as the ones for physical pain ",
"Neuroscience has found the anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain responsible for initiating feeling pain is also active when we experience social pain or heartbreak. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
tgflg
|
how foreign aid can do more harm than good
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tgflg/eli5_how_foreign_aid_can_do_more_harm_than_good/
|
{
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"c4me23s",
"c4meq9j",
"c4mf8xl"
],
"score": [
7,
3,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"It treats the symptom, not the cause.\n\nLet's say Zambia is having a famine. Low rainfall and low infrastructure (roads, irrigation, sewers) make it hard for them to cope. Hopefully, the weather will get better in the future and crops will rebound, but right now people are starving.\n\nSo the US gets a bunch of grains (which we have on hand for various other economic reasons) and ships them over. Hurray! People have food and don't die. Of course, it's hard to argue with this. But what happens when the grain is gone? The roads and irrigation are still crappy, so if there is another bad season, the same thing could happen again.\n\nThere is another angle, which is that often nearby countries have food to sell, but because of the bad situation in the starving country, they can't afford to buy. It is possible that instead of shipping US grain, we could just purchase the grain from that area. This benefits the neighbors, but it also prevents the region from being washed out in free food. How is this a problem? If there is too much free grain available, nearby producers who want to sell will not be able to. Now THESE guys are in trouble, because they have debts they can't pay back, which can lead to problems down the road.\n\nEvery situation is different. Often, throwing money or food at a problem is too simplistic. What about situations where warlords intercept the aid?",
"In some situations people with guns will take foreign food and oppress local farmers to maintain control over region. Sometimes free food will cause drop in prices of local food to the point it will stop being profitable. Sometimes giving people just food won't help improving their farming techniques and equipment.",
"I suppose the simplest way to explain it would be to refer to the old axiom:\n\n > Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.\n\nAt the moment all aid is doing is feeding people from day to day, without actually \"teaching them how to fish\" or in reality, fixing government corruption, fixing underlying infrastructure and agriculture.",
"Free food undercuts local farmers. If you were a citizen in a poor nation, would you buy food from a farmer, or would you get it free from the US? I'd get it free. So we're putting the farms out of business, which makes things worse.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4uodbn
|
how do musicians add radio station names to their songs?
|
Do they record multiple versions of the same verse and supply different recordings to the various radio stations or is it somehow generated from software?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uodbn/eli5_how_do_musicians_add_radio_station_names_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5rq144",
"d5rqoiv"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"If the words are in the artist's voice then yes, they recorded a bunch of different lines in the studio. It wouldn't even take that long since the artist could literally just read a list of radio stations into the mic with a slight pause in between each one.\n\nThe only time consuming part is editing in the right station name and making sure that file was sent to right radio station. However front loading all that work at the studio makes way more sense than having a live DJ try and add the station ID each time.\n\nAlso many big artists record station specific tag lines already. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard \"Hey this is < famous singer > and you're listening to < major market radio station > \"",
"OP is asking how they make customized versions of radio singles for a radio station where they name drop a station's name or replace some lyrics. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2jhf3t
|
why are offences against children deemed much worse than a crime against an adult?
|
When people hear about a shooting or a sexual violation against adults it's bad but the reaction isn't as bad as when it's about children. When I hear about it does sound worse but that's because there's that pre-existing stigma that goes with offences against children. So why's it worse?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jhf3t/eli5_why_are_offences_against_children_deemed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clbrd1a",
"clbrh1w"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"Because people usually figure that it is a lot harder for a child to defend himself/herself as opposed to a adult, which may or may not be true. Also, if there is any mental/physical trauma, the child will sometimes have a far harder time coping with it, and a longer time also.",
"children cannot defend themselves as effectively, they are a LOT easier to fool and take advantage of. this might not be PC or whatever, but children are basically retarded disabled adults"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6x60m5
|
why does new battery in older cellphone gets discharged at the same speed as the old battery?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6x60m5/eli5_why_does_new_battery_in_older_cellphone_gets/
|
{
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"dmdcj8r",
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],
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12,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Heres the thing. \n\nLithium batteries have a variable voltage, while they do specify 3.7v they actually vary between 4.2 and 3.2v depending on the charge level, thats how your phone mesures how much battery is left, the more chage, the higher the voltage difference (4.2v isnt theres 4,2v, it means a 4.2v difference with ground which is usualy 0)\n\nNow to keep the battery as healthy as possible and to protect you from the battery exploding or catching fire the phone keeps a log of battery use to make sure the battery charge and discharge cycles are adjusted to the state of the battery, \n\nIf you insert a new battery in to the phone, you need to get rid of the logs or the phone will keep treating the new batter as if its the old one. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Probably your old battery is perfectly fine. Just because the battery lasts short doesn't mean it's the fault of the battery, it may be the phone that is consuming more power than it should. Since you've tried factory reset it's probably a hardware problem, current leaking to ground somewhere or something.",
"The new battery might (not necessarily) be a fake. A German PC magazine bought 12 or so Samsung \"original\" batteries on Amazon and checked with Samsung to find out ALL of them were fakes.\n\nIf that's not the problem, an operating system update might have caused that, too."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/how-to-manually-trigger-battery-history-t2808837"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
1t3xzv
|
e: what exactly is stopping us from generating a light source for domestic use (bulb/led etc) that is has an infinite lifespan?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t3xzv/e_what_exactly_is_stopping_us_from_generating_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce42e6l"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Things wear out. Whatever the light source, you're basically running a bunch of energy through a device that turns it into light. None of these devices are 100% efficient, so some of that energy is turned into heat. The parts of the device thermally expand and contract as the light sources are turned on and off, and over time the materials fatigue, and eventually something fails.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3exbp6
|
why does it take some people forever to lose weight?
|
I'm trying to lose 24kgs and when I tried getting help of a fitness app, it said I could pull this off in 2 years. I've already dropped 10kg before (in a month and a half) and I still ate right. Why don't these fitness apps allow for weight to be lost faster?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3exbp6/eli5_why_does_it_take_some_people_forever_to_lose/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctj8uwv",
"ctj938o"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"the maximum recommended weight loss is no more than 1 kg/week. any faster than that and you risk some health complications. \n\nmaybe you are working out a lot, eating right, whatever. most people aren't able to do that, so it sets up a more realistic goal.",
"It takes over 7k calories to burn off a kg of fat. 10kg would be over 70k calories over about 45 days means you were shorting your body 1500 calories per day on average. That almost certainly isn't healthy. The recommended amount to lose is 0.5 kg per week, which would mean that 24 kg should take close to a year"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
50na17
|
why is so hard for the brain to read sentences with random words in it ?
|
Example:
Has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50na17/eli5_why_is_so_hard_for_the_brain_to_read/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d75dgi0"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"When we read something, our brain takes shortcuts and uses \"sight words\" to process the sentence without reading every little thing. \n\nWhen those clues and cues are not followed, the the brain trips over itself and struggles to comprehend the \"new\" sentence pattern. Sort of like if you are walking up steps and expect them to be the same height, but then 2-3 are a bit too short or tall."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3d7kbx
|
how does "grey hair targeting" hair dye work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d7kbx/eli5_how_does_grey_hair_targeting_hair_dye_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ct2jpe9",
"ct2n7e6"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"To the best of my knowledge, this is just marketing buzz words to get people to buy your product. All dye does is color your hair, the same way brown paint will color an object brown.",
"I tried to dye my normal hair with gray hair dye (a bottle of my dad's 'Just for Men') and it didn't take at all. Couldn't tell a difference. I do think it's somewhat legitimate, though I'm not sure how it works. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8zo4if
|
why is 10^70 bits of information per square meter the maximum amount of storage possible? isn't adding more info just changing the spin or something of subatomic particles?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zo4if/eli5_why_is_1070_bits_of_information_per_square/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e2k5du0",
"e2l0fcx",
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],
"score": [
9,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"That's the number of bits that can be put in a cubic meter if your information density is the Planck length. It's impossible to have things smaller than this. It's much, much smaller than a sub-atomic particle (in the sense which sub-atomic particles have \"width\" which isn't precisely even true). [This good PBS page](_URL_0_ ) goes into it in more detail.",
"This seems like an indirect reference to the Bekenstein bound:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd I think the answer is, nobody really knows yet. But imho something like this had to be true, for the entropy of an object or volume to be finite.",
"Quantum mechanics, fundamentally, can be thought of as a limitation on information content in a physical system. You may have heard of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - which isn't really a good name for it: the better one that we are looking for is Heisenberg's \"blurriness\" or \"fuzziness\" principle. This is a better translation of the German word that Heisenberg used for the principle and which has the sense of \"fuzzy\" as in a blurred photograph, something that also happens to be a reasonably decent analogue for what is going on here, because a blurred photograph contains less information than a sharp one. In particular, you can test this yourself by comparing the size of a very blurry .png picture file of a scene to a sharp one with a complex scene. The blurry picture will compress to a smaller size, and the maximum size of compression is dictated by the information content: you can represent the same information more efficiently with less redundancy, but there comes to be a point where when you reach the actual information content of the picture in question, you cannot compress further without actually destroying the quality as you end up throwing out information, i.e. blurring, the picture, to make it smaller, and this is also why those TV shows (not sure if they still do it anymore, I don't watch TV) where they have that magic \"enhancement zoom\" that can zoom into the tiniest patch of fuzz and pull out a criminal suspect's face are complete bubkas: that information simply doesn't exist there, that's what the blurriness means.\n\nMathematically, we describe a situation of limited information by using a probability distribution. If you know something with probability 100%, that means you have complete information about that thing, but if you know it with a probability of only, say, 85%, then your information is more limited: it is possible it is something other than what you think. (Mathematically we say that the *entropy* of a random variable with the nontrivial probability distribution is positive, and entropy is - surprise - measured in bits.) As the probability goes down and closer to equivocal with the alternatives, your information is still less. And this is what happens in the quantum mathematics: the parameters of a physical system, like momentum and position, become describable by non-trivial (i.e. not 0% or 100%) probability distributions (actually it's \"norm-2 complex probability theory\" not ordinary probability theory), and thus we can say they are described by what amounts to a limited level of information, compared to a classical-mechanical description, where you have 100% knowledge that a particle is located \"right here\", and 100% knowledge it is going \"that way\". In quantum, that information simply does not exist: while it is incorrect as some popular presentations say that \"objective reality does not exist without your looking at it\" - or, at least, this is not a scientific statement that quantum mechanics forces us to accept (you can still argue it *philosophically*, if you want - it's the old \"tree falls and nobody hears it\" paradox), it *does* say, at least in a suitably simple and versatile interpretation, that \"objective\" reality, at least as it models it, is one with a lowered information content in the sense I just gave, compared to the one that we would describe in Newtonian mechanics, as these probability distributions cannot be made to go away, which suggests they are features of reality itself - that is what Heisenberg tells: you try to narrow the probability distribution for position too far, you will eventually start to broaden it in momentum, and vice versa. (And what's \"too far\"? That is what Planck's constant is! It is effectively the upper bound on total information content - with suitable mathematics to make the connection, of course, and not directly in informational dimensions because the quantities it relates such as position and momentum have physical dimension.)\n\nThe bound you are talking about comes about in attempts to apply quantum mechanics to the theory of gravity and space-time, and following the logic above, it would suggest that the information content of space-time itself is limited, that is, in some sense not only does there come a point where that in, say, measuring or locating the position of a particle you have squeezed out all the information so as to begin losing information in the momentum, but there is some point - i.e. the Planck Length - where you simply cannot even increase the position information beyond no matter how much you want to sacrifice in momentum information to compensate. This then results in there being an absolute maximum on the total information any region of space-time can contain, and it turns out that, surprise(!), this maximal information is also that attained by a black hole. (You can sort of heuristically argue that like this: once you have shrunk the position uncertainty that small, you have added so much energy due to the increased momentum (remember that E = p\\^2/2m, so your expected value of energy will be very, very big) that the thing itself you're trying to localize collapses to form a little black hole, and this is the information maximum since you can't do any better collapsing something than a black hole, after all. Putting a bunch of those tiny black holes together to make a big black hole then shows that the big black hole is, likewise, the maximum information storage you can have in a given volume of space.)\n\nAnd when you calculate how much information that is, you get about 10\\^70 bits/m\\^2 of horizon area.\n\n(Just to mention: There are some interpretations of quantum theory that try to posit that its limited information random variables are just a guise for \"hidden\", exact information, like Bohmian mechanics, but these interpretations have a number of problems, most seriously being that it is hard to make them general enough to account for the most modern quantum theories like quantum field theory, much less quantum-gravitational theories that go beyond those ones still.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2014/04/is-information-fundamental/"
],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound"
],
[]
] |
||
3lzogx
|
why aren't medical insurance companies at the forefront of this medication price gouging scandal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lzogx/eli5_why_arent_medical_insurance_companies_at_the/
|
{
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"cvapdgl",
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"text": [
"Because they benefit more from the price gouging. You can't afford medicine without them and their special negotiated rates for procedures, they make their money from that. If medical and drug costs were brought to a sane level then a lot of relatively healthy people would not even consider needing insurance, which is bad for insurance because they need people to pay and not use their insurance for it all to work. They would rather you pay them $1000 over a period of time and they pay the drug company $800 than you alone pay the fair price of $100 for your drugs. This is why people hold the opinion that government intervention is needed and what came out in recent years is actually going to make things worse, not better. ",
"Insurance guy here!\n\nThis is a complicated question. First, medical insurance companies DO hold a lot of power over pricing. We flat out tell providers what they can bill and where they can shove the rest of it. A patient entering the ER needing any of the price gouged drugs would not only receive them, he'd pay a normal price.\n\nHowever. Your pharmacy insurance is not your medical insurance.\n\nPharmacy coverage is another monster. The pharmacy guys don't have as much say, and push a lot of their costs on to patients. The plans are arranged differently, so even though you have an out of pocket max of day 2000 dollars, which you met, you will still be expected to pay because this is a different class of drug. Specialty medications have their own set of rules and patients tend to get screwed.\n\nHowever, there's good news. Price gouging medication is so very illegal. Without an fda backed study proving a new use for the medication, companies aren't allowed to raise the price by much. There will probably be a pretty hefty law suit. But I'm just guessing. I'm all medical, not pharmacy. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
csn99t
|
why do bees, bumblebees and wasps all have the same yellow black color pattern?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/csn99t/eli5_why_do_bees_bumblebees_and_wasps_all_have/
|
{
"a_id": [
"exfu2nz",
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"score": [
66,
24
],
"text": [
"Many of them (though not all of them) can sting. The first ones that could sting evolved a distinct pattern to warn predators that they could sting - better to not even be in the situation where you might get hurt, right? But then some of the non-stinging insects evolved the same pattern because predators who avoid black-and-yellow insects on principle would avoid them anyway.\n\nIt's called mimicry, and it's a fantastic, if entirely accidental, strategy for self-defense. The fact that they chose black and yellow as the \"agreed upon\" pattern was totally arbitrary save for the fact that it's visible in their native environment.",
"It's a universally recognised colour combination that means \"fuck off, come near me and I will fuck you up\" in the animal kingdom."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
vb42m
|
what would the drawbacks of the fair tax be?
|
After reading about the fair tax [here](_URL_0_), the general principles seem refreshingly simple and reasonable. Eliminate all taxes but a flat rate sales tax, then issue a universal prebate which would ensure that people would not be taxed on the costs of the basic necessities of life. Then people would only be taxed on luxuries that went above and beyond basic spending. The wealthiest portion of the population would provide the tax money to keep the roads up, pay the teachers and firefighters, etc., while those without discretionary spending would be able to provide for themselves and their families without the burden of heavy taxation.
However, I feel like it has to be more complicated than it seems, but I have no head for economics and all the debates about it on /r/PoliticalDiscussion went over my head a bit. Can anyone please explain what the potential pitfalls of the Fair Tax might be?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vb42m/eli5_what_would_the_drawbacks_of_the_fair_tax_be/
|
{
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"c52xpv6",
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"text": [
"The goal of any good tax system is to cause the least amount of harm to the taxpayer while collecting enough revenue to operate the government. A basic flat tax will effect the poor far more than it will effect the rich. An example being: collecting 10% of a rich man's income may mean he can't buy that second sports car, while collecting 10% of a poor man's income may mean he can't heat his home. This being the case, if the goal is to do the least amount of harm, we must accept that our tax system needs to discriminate. The current tax system in the US aims to discriminate based on income, the fair tax would attempt to discriminate based on the definition of \"need\". It is in the definition of these discriminating factors that the acceptable amount of harm and discrimination are decided.\n\nIf the simplicity of the fair tax appeals to you, consider that defining the income boundaries of an individual taxpayer is much simpler than defining their needs. If the reason appeals to you, consider how reasonable it is to allow the government to define the needs of every individual.",
"The biggest problem, IMO, is that is it taxing consumption. It increases the cost of the very thing the economy needs and depends on to expand and keep functioning. The way it has traditionally been promoted, it also [shifts the tax burden onto the middle class](_URL_0_).",
"The problem with taxing purchases in the US is that other countries sell stuff.There used to be a vibrant yacht building industry in Mississippi and Alabama on the Gulf, but a successful luxury tax sent all the rich people abroad.\n\nThousands of unemployed resulted, and lots of happy foreign yacht manufacturers."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HowFairTaxWorks"
] |
[
[],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/NRST-percentile.png"
],
[]
] |
|
1zcpmx
|
the average credit card debt in america is around 7,000 $. as someone from a different culture who was never in debt, how does that happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zcpmx/eli5_the_average_credit_card_debt_in_america_is/
|
{
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"text": [
"People keep using their credit card to buy and buy when they don't have the funds to pay that credit card bill. The interest builds up and accumulates the longer they don't pay. Essentially, people spend more than they earn and cant pay the bills.",
"As you'd probably imagine, it boils down to ignorance & foolishness. Whether it's a behavior learned as a child or developed as an adult, buying unnecessary luxuries you don't have the funds to pay for now with borrowed credit is a fools game.\nIt's unfortunately somehow become a game of identity or self worth .. trying to keep up with neighbors or perhaps to feel better or wealthy by having all the newest, neatest crap regardless of one's actual income.",
"Something to consider is that a person's wealth can be displayed by items they own: the nice car, the jewellery. Society takes these as indicators of prosperity and people are drawn to that (you may make more friends or be treated with more respect).\n\nHowever, the debt that enabled these purchases is easily kept secret until things get serious.\n\nConsider these two questions and the social acceptability of them:\n\n\"Where did you buy your watch / shoes / dress?\"\n\n\"How much debt are you in?\"\n\n",
"It is super easy to go into debt in America. It seems like all it takes is one trip to the hospital (even with insurance) to rack up a 4 or 5 figure hospital bill.\n\nPeople are just bad with money. Buy things they don't need with money they don't have.",
"My husband didn't have any credit for the longest of time. He always saved up and pay out of pocket. Starting out this lead to us paying higher price in rent because 'lack of credit history.' APR on things like car loans was through the roof (almost 19 percent if we had bought a car back then). So, basically not having credit was hurting us. We fixed this problem by getting a credit card over five years ago. We spent about 4k on the credit card, and then didn't use it since. We had paid on time every month. After five years, this jumped my husband's credit score up by more then a 150 points. So, now rent is significantly cheaper, and our car loan was only a 4.9 percent APR for five year loan.\n\nSo I can understand why some people have credit card debt and not all credit card debt is bad.\n\nThe next question would be, how many people are in default on their credit cards, what is their credit card debt to ratio of their income, and how many people have always paid on time?\n\nCredit cards are not a bad thing, but they are a tricky thing with a slippery slope. You can easily spend like a rock star with a credit card only to go broke.",
"Banks and credit companies charge you money for not having enough money.",
"you don't have any debt, whatsoever? do you ever plan on purchasing a house or living in a rental forever? I'm curious...",
"Low pay and a vicious cycle\nOf predatory lending. I work 70 hrs a week for a construction co. That fires anyone that asks questions about pay. There's no overtime and everyone who works there hates is. Also where I live there is no living situation for less than 1000 a month, so I f my asswipe boss decides to cut my pay and I can't cover my bills for the month, I would be forced to use a credit card to pay for groceries, heat, meds. As it is I don't use one, but only because I've been very creative in procuring certain goods. The situation is miserable. I'm in one of the wealthiest states in the USA as well. ",
"Well it can be argued that in America, consumerism is more prominent than most other countries and American consumers need the latest thing and they need it now, whether or not they have the funds to pay for it.",
"I am hearing a lot of debt-hating in this thread.\n\nI've got a large credit card debt for two very simple reasons: 1) the car got totaled in an accident and 2) I had to have surgery.\n\nthe U.S. is a very vehicle-focused country, and in most places a car is quite necessary for work. (yes. it is possible to bike or walk or take the bus to work. But not always, and not easily, and it costs a lot of time, and the roads are ill-equipped for this. Try to stay focused on the main discussion, okay?). I spent 6 months trying to get a good used car and in that time I ran up maybe 1k on my credit card. When I finally got a car, I took out a loan from my bank to get it. The interest rate was quite low and I started to pay off my credit card debt since I made at least $500 over my monthly expenses every month and was able to put that towards the bill.\n\nThen I had surgery. But first, before the surgery, I had 4 visits with the surgeon and his office, two visits with my regular doctor, and an extra visit with my heart doctor and my psychiatrist. Plus the ER visit, where I learned that I had either gallstones or gallbladder cancer, yay. that was fun. Between all these visits I ran up a quick $1.5k (thank you, ER, for sucking and being extremely expensive). AFTER insurance. Anyway, then I had surgery. And because I have insurance, I only owed about $800 for the surgery, plus another $350 for the anesthesia. And my savings had gone into the downpayment on the car and I still had my regular bills to pay, water, electric, rent, and food, and I got my pay cut at work (ehhh it's a semesterly thing, the new fall semester I was being paid by a different grant and it wasn't as much).\n\nBecause I have a reliable job, and resources to help me face these challenges, I will (I think) get my $5k in debt paid off by the end of the year. But if this had happened to anyone else in my family, with their inflexible jobs where they'd get hours cut for having to take time off for health (yes, that's probably illegal) and where they had no savings to begin with--it's very easy to see how that might spiral out of control. $500-$1k a year is the average amount you should expect to pay to maintain your vehicle, even if it is new. Then there's gas. And there's always another emergency cropping up to devour any extra $100 you might've been able to put towards the bill.",
"UK here but it's easy to slide into CC debt. A small financial emergency turns up and the CC bails you out. Then you get into the habit of feeling safe without savings because the CC is your backup.\n\nThen some nice new toy tempts you and hey it's only a little bit per month. Next thing you know you owe a LOT and the monthly interest makes a big difference to your lifestyle.\n\nI've paid off 2 thirds of my debt over the last couple of years. Taking it a bit easier now as the interest isn't that much so no real point in depriving myself too much paying off as much as possible each month.\n\nGiven my low income, it's a strange feeling seeing a big ticket item for around £5000 and thinking, I could buy that today...actually I can't, it would be stupid.",
"It should be mentioned that your number is only for people who have credit card debt at all. It does not factor in the fact that the majority of people who have credit cards pay it off each month and thus have 0 credit card debt.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/average-credit_card_debt-1276.php"
]
] |
||
b9i8hl
|
why do some restaurants have different names depending on what part of the country they're in?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b9i8hl/eli5_why_do_some_restaurants_have_different_names/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ek4otte",
"ek4p1ej"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Depends.\n\nFor some, it's that the name they use was already used by a restaurant in the state that they wanted to move to. You can't have two restaurants with the same name in the same state. \n\nFor others, it's that they purchased the other restaurant chain and want to keep the name recognition, while introducing their products. This is what happened with Hardee's and Carl's Jr as well as Checkers and Rally's.",
"Its can be many reasons including - buying up other businesses and retaining the names because people are familiar with them.\nBecause certain names are not suitable for the region.\nBecause the name was registered to another company in that region before they came along, and they couldn’t agree a deal to fain control of the name. \nBecause they are a different ‘grade’ of restaurant. Ie one ‘budget’ another ‘midrange’ etc, and having the same items but different prices. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3zgodu
|
what has oil got to do with world wars?
|
I was reading today about theories that the vast majority of western countries only step in to "save" countries from oppressors if there is something to gain. Are things like oil the mediating factors?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zgodu/eli5_what_has_oil_got_to_do_with_world_wars/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cylyds7",
"cylyi32",
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8,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Nations definitely do not fight wars unless they hope to gain something from it. Though, in the post-WWII world, that \"something\" is generally influence and not physical resources. To be blunt, it's almost always far cheaper to buy something from someone these days than to conquer them and try and take it by force.",
"Oil is expensive, currently necessary to all industry and economies, and growing rarer and rarer. Many of the places with large amounts of easily accessible oil are in very war-torn nations. It makes it difficult to set up a trade agreement with a nation where the government may be overthrown or break into civil war at any moment. And those trade agreements usually involve \"please prevent me and my people from getting killed, we need bombs and soldiers.\" \n\nThis is further evidenced by the atrocities and civil wars going on in other parts of the world that don't have oil, and they are totally ignored by 1st world nations.",
"Forget oil the fact is this: All wars are economic. There is not one war in history that was not based on economics The rise of Rome to Rival the economic power of Carthage, brought two wars and the eventual destruction of Carthage economically and culturally. Even the most famous war in history the Peloponnesian wars between Sparta and Athens was purely economics though when reading Thuccydides or Herodotus on this war it would seem or appear to be about other matters. The rise of Germany threatened the British empire twice, eventually destroyed it and gave rise to another economic power America. Another interesting point about historical wars is this: the rising or new economic powers always defeats the incumbent economic power or causes its power to be destroyed even when the rising power\nloses, such as Germany which you could argue did defeat Britain because it destroyed it as an economic power and basically turned it into a fifth rate military power. This gave rise to the American economic power. And America stayed out of that war to ensure that the British empire would be weakened beyond recovery which it was\nSo all wars are economic no matter when or for what ever reason they are supposedly fought it is about economic power nothing else. The British used the polish invasion by Germany as an excuse to go to war with Germany, yet as soon as soon as the Russians won the WW2 in Europe the British and the Americans abandoned the polish state. so oil has very little to do with it is all about economic power and little more.\nSo The next war between China and the US will quite simply end in the destruction of American military and economic power, whether or not China takes over that mantle or not will depend on other rising powers such as India or Russian allowing these two to fight it out themselves, and pick up the pieces.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1hwoio
|
why isn't it easy to convert black and white photos into colored ones?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hwoio/eli5_why_isnt_it_easy_to_convert_black_and_white/
|
{
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"caynqs0",
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3,
2
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"text": [
"Because the photo is black and white because the camera didn't have the equipment required to capture color. In going color to black and white, you use a computer to take information away. You can't just flip a switch and have the camera/computer go \"oh, ok, I know all this new information now.\"",
"Black-and-white and color photography are pretty different technologies. You can think of black-and-white film as a \"light sensor\". Every spot on the film records how much light was shined at it, from no light (black) to the maximum amount of light the film can absorb (white).* No information about the color of light is recorded so there's nothing to convert or restore.\n\nColor film is made of different layers of film. Each layer is sensitive to either red, green, or blue light. Each layer absorbs light in the same way as black-and-white film, but because the layers are colored you get a stack of areas that are more or less red, green, and blue.\n\nSince the cones and rods in the human eye are sensitive to red, green, and blue light, this stack of film can reproduce most of the colors people can see.\n\nDigital photography works the same way except the film is replaced with a grid of tiny sensors, each of which is sensitive to red, green, or blue light.\n\n\n**With many kinds of film the process is reversed and the chemicals turn dark the more light they absorb. When the film is exposed it will be inverted light-to-dark (a negative) and there's another step to put it back the right way.*",
"Suppose you have three balls, one red, one green and one blue. You could take a black-and-white picture of each one. When you look at the pictures, they look identical. The balls happened to be just the right shade of red, green and blue for this to happen. So which picture is which? You can't tell.\n\nGoing from colour to black and white loses information that cannot be recovered, just as taking a photograph goes from 3D to 2D and loses information that cannot be recovered.\n\nWhere you might have seen colorised black-and-white images, this is usually done manually by people who either have access to the original objects and know what colour they are, or who have a damn good guess. For example, people are generally a certain colour, as is the sky on a sunny day, leaves on a tree, etc. When it comes to things that can be of various colours, such as clothes, it becomes pure guesswork."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2b3ano
|
what does a military or terrorist organisation gain by shooting down a civilian plane and then denying it?
|
In most situations where civilians are targeted, the organisation wants to show power. However, in the case of MH17 all organisations that could possibly have been involved are issuing denials. What is to be gained for any militant organisation by targeting a plane and then denying the attack?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b3ano/eli5_what_does_a_military_or_terrorist/
|
{
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"Because they didn't intend to shoot down a civilian airliner. They thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian military transport aircraft.\n\nNo one has anything to gain from shooting down a bunch of civilians. That's why they are attempting to deny it.",
"Far more likely is that it was an accident. Someone mistook MH17 for a military transport/command/refueling aircraft and is now trying to cover it up. Let's be clear: both the US and Russia have satellites monitoring the area and both know perfectly well when and where the missile was launched from. They both know pretty well who did it and are just playing out the politics at this point.",
"Imagine you are playing baseball in your backyard with your brother. At one point you get angry about something and begin fight with him. You throw the ball at him but miss and break a window. So you blame him. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
15iy7v
|
open, moderate, and strict nat types.
|
I know that the more restricted a NAT type is, the fewer types of networks in can communicate with. I also know that this affects online gaming (the Google results I got for "strict NAT" were for gaming forums and "how to fix" pages).
What makes a NAT the type that it is? And why have I never really heard about this outside of online gaming?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15iy7v/eli5_open_moderate_and_strict_nat_types/
|
{
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],
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2
],
"text": [
"For the majority of what people do on the internet, what they receive is a response to a request they made. When you go to reddit you are requesting an HTML page through your browser, and the web server responds with the web page containing the content. \n\nNAT helps ensure that everything you are accepting is a response to a request. This keeps the bad guys out, and it works pretty well.\n\nBut it can cause problems with peer-to-peer (gaming and torrents). When two users are trying to communicate directly, if neither can accept an unsolicited incoming connection, then they can't talk.\n\nThe NAT \"type\" for gaming deals with the types of unsolicited connections your network will accept. Which ports are open, etc.\n\nOne thing that can make this difficult is that many ISPs' modems are also routers, so besides dealing with your own router and firewall settings, it's possible your ISP's modem was configured to block certain kinds of traffic. (e.g., some ISPs block Port 80 on routers for their non-business-class customers because they don't want non-business users running web servers.)",
"According to [CAI](_URL_0_), these three terms were defined by Microsoft relative to the Xbox 360, which is why that's the only place you hear about them.\n\nNAT takes one IP address provided by your ISP and \"maps\" it to a \"private\" set of IP numbers for the devices on your home network, so they can all share that one IP to talk to the ISP. To the rest of the Internet, it looks like all your devices have that same IP number, even though on your network they look like various things that start with 192.168 (usually, but it can also be 10. or 172.16-172.31.)\n\nYour Xbox wants to be able to talk directly to Microsoft (and maybe to other Xboxes) and more importantly wants them to be able to talk directly to it. It needs for your NAT router to allow UDP protocol numbers 3074, 5060, and 5061 to pass directly through the NAT router to the Xbox. \n\nBecause these are \"UDP\" instead of \"TCP\" they are \"connectionless\", and so it isn't correct to call them \"port\" numbers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.cainetworks.com/support/how-to-NAT-strict-open.html"
]
] |
|
23mfko
|
how does a smart meter work and how does a smart grid work? why are the necessary?
|
I keep hearing buzz about electric utilities being switched to the smart meter. I am having difficulty wrapping my head around why they are being implemented and what it means for the bigger picture (both environmental and cost wise).
Edit: I've had lots of great commentary about how this works but I still am not sure why it is necessary. Does anyone have any reference they can point me to about why this movement to smart grids needs to happen?
For anyone interested in wtf I'm referring to, here's a brief overview: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23mfko/eli5_how_does_a_smart_meter_work_and_how_does_a/
|
{
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" > I am having difficulty wrapping my head around why they are being implemented\n\nA traditional meter is basically a box that turns a wheel based on the rate at which your house or building consumes electricity from the grid, and racks up a total so you can be charged. A \"smart meter\" does a similar task of recording, but can communicate it back to the company directly instead of requiring some person to come out and check every single meter and write down the total. On the most basic level this saves a lot of footwork.\n\n > and what it means for the bigger picture (both environmental and cost wise).\n\nHourly information (or even more detailed) on power consumption can enable the electricity providers to better tailor their production to consumption, cutting margins closer which saves them money and reduces the consumption of resources which aids the environmental impact.",
"(I work for a utility implementing Smart Grid/meter stuff)\n\nBefore we go into what this stuff does, let's look at how what we have now sucks.\n\nSo your power goes out, too bad. So you'll just wait for the power company to fix it right? Not a great idea. They probably **have no idea**. There isn't really the capability to tell that a neighborhood or especially a house has lost power. So if no one complains they might not come fix it, depending on where the problem is.\n\nThe line leading into your small area comes from a larger line down main street, which connects to a main line connecting to your neighborhood. Well if anything in that chain breaks, you're screwed. Power only gets to you one way, and when anything in that line is cut, it's basically over.\n\nSo you lost power in your neighborhood, but there is a long road leading to it. Where did the line get messed up? No one knows. Guess the power company just needs to drive down the road until they spot the issue, hopefully.\n\n----\n\nSmart Grid is a bunch of different components that share data from power line to power line in order to control and manage where power goes.\n\nIt would let them know exactly when you lose power, hopefully fixing it much faster. It would let them reroute power along different lines, in case one broke, so you might not even notice it happened, and it would allow them to pinpoint exactly where the problem is so they can fix it quicker. They can also connect/disconnect service remotely.\n\nThere are also smart meters, which make it easier to track electricity usage for the utility and for you."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.ameren.com/sites/aiu/map/pages/smartgrid.aspx"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
apdghy
|
how come blood transfusions can work even though the foreign blood cells contain the wrong dna?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/apdghy/eli5_how_come_blood_transfusions_can_work_even/
|
{
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"text": [
"Apart from anything else, red blood cells don't have DNA. That's the reason they can't reproduce; they're manufactured elsewhere in the body.",
"Just about the only thing that matters in a blood transfusion is the blood type. If two people have the same blood type they are compatible. But it can also work in some special cases where the blood types are different. Receiving blood from the wrong ABO group can be life threatening. For example, if someone with group B blood is given group A blood, their anti-A antibodies will attack the group A cells.\n\nThis is why group A blood must never be given to someone who has group B blood and vice versa.\n\nAs group O red blood cells don't have any A or B antigens, it can safely be given to any other group.\n\n",
"Note that red blood cells don't have DNA, although white blood cells do.\n\nWhat you're getting at is called a transplant reaction or Transfusion Reaction. \n\nThis is not directly responsible to DNA which is usually deeply buried and protected inside the nuclear membrane in the center of cells. Rather, a transfusion reaction is caused by proteins and carbohydrates on the surface of blood cells called *Antigens*. \n\nWhen blood from one person is transfused, it's possible that antigens in the blood will trigger a response that causes the transfused blood cells to stick together in large clumps. This is by means of antibodies in the recipient's blood plasma and other tissues that strongly bind to antigens in the transfused blood. This can cause life threatening blood clots.\n\nNote that the normal purpose of antibodies is to bind to bacteria, viruses, and toxic substances so that immune cells can grab and absorb them.\n\nThere are three common antigens that can cause this, called A, B, and Rh in shorthand. Whether you have these antigens depends on whether you inherit the relevant genes from your parents. \n\nIt may be the case that if you lack, A, B, and/or Rh antigens, simply being in contact with people having them will cause your body to begin to produce antibody proteins that bind to them, in the same way as being exposed to a disease. This part of the process is still uncertain. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3nu0if
|
why do radio stations always stop a song with about 1-2 seconds left in it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nu0if/eli5_why_do_radio_stations_always_stop_a_song/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvrbttm"
],
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"text": [
"It's to keep the flow, and to avoid a thing called [Dead Air] \n(_URL_0_)\n\nIt basically makes everything a continuous stream of entertainment, with no breaks. It's much easier to talk over the last few seconds of a track than it is to wait for it to fully stop and then begin speaking again."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_air"
]
] |
||
33yfci
|
why do they say we are programmed to get cancer?
|
Watched a video a couple weeks back about how if you live long enough you eventually get cancer
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33yfci/eli5_why_do_they_say_we_are_programmed_to_get/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqpj9yu"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"We are self replicating. Cells constantly replace themselves. However, the copy isn't perfect. If the copy goes bad, it's recursive in the sense that the next time it replaces itself, it's just going to be a bad cell again.\n\nSo over time, more bad cells build up. If you lived forever, you'd reach a point where finally enough bad cells will have been created to cause problems, such as the cells becoming cancerous.\n\nThe problem with cancer cells is that they become unregulated by the body and sub-divide out of control. This is why it causes tumors. The tumor is a bad cell left to its own devices."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9my98g
|
what exactly are firewalls in terms of computer security? how do they work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9my98g/eli5_what_exactly_are_firewalls_in_terms_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e7i77gs",
"e7i7d7n",
"e7i7q9j",
"e7i7ykl",
"e7i9rwr",
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"e7ikuev",
"e7jigt0"
],
"score": [
18,
2,
5,
3,
14,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Easiest way to explain it is its basically like a filter that lets certain predetermined computers and programs pass and blocks others",
"So every type of connection has a port or a port range to connect to the internet or a network. Applications, VPN etc etc. What firewall does is that it blocks the ports of whatever you choose to block or is known to be used for bad stuff. \nFor example if a dangerous application uses a specific port number or a range . firewall blocks all connections in that range so it can not communicate. ",
"Every machine connected to the internet has an IP address, which identifies it. In the simplest terms a firewall is a list that says \"let these IP addresses through to your PC, but not these ones\".\n\nYour computer also has software on it, some of which want to access the internet. Your firewall is a list that says \"let these programs access the internet, but not these ones\".\n\nThere's also ports that can be blocked and not blocked, but that's perhaps going beyond ELI5. Everything that comes and goes in and out does so via ports, which all serve a specific purpose: programs or functions will use certain ports because those ports are set up to facilitate the way those functions work. Firewalls can block those ports too. For example, many firewalls now block Port 445 because it's a very easy port to use for hackers to get into computer networks.\n",
"A firewall is, at its most simple, a set of rules for what can and can't cross a network boundary. That boundary can go anywhere the security engineer wants; in an enterprise setting, it usually goes at the *network perimeter,* or at the point where the company's internal network crosses over to the public internet.\n\nIt can be configured to block certain IP addresses or ranges of addresses, certain ports or ranges of ports, to *only allow* certain addresses or ports, or even to block all incoming connections that weren't initiated from inside the firewall.",
"Conceptualize internet traffic as road traffic in the form of trucks. The firewall is border security that separates your home from your (untrusted) neighbouring countries.\n\nEach truck that wants to enter the country has papers that tell the border security officer what the origin of the truck was (IP address of sender), where the truck wants to deliver its load (port/application that is going to receive the payload) and the order form of the one who requested the load (this is the web page you clicked on in your browser).\n\nMore advanced firewalls will also want to look inside your truck to see if there are goods you're trying to smuggle in (malicious payload). \n\nWhenever the border security officer sees something it doesn't like, it denies the truck entry. \n\nFirewalls are also able to work in the outgoing direction. Here, the border security officers check if the truck wanting to leave the country is legit and whether it's trying to smuggle contents out (a virus within your system is trying to send your personal data to a criminal). \n",
"To go a bit further on the how they work part, it depends on the type of firewall. Firewall software you would commonly see operates on a computer and determines what type of traffic can connect. On large networks that you would see in a business setting, you would likely see actual hardware designed to provided a firewal for the entire network. These are often defined as packet filtering or stateful inspection. Stateful is usually better because it examines the actual content of the data while packet filtering only looks at the characteristics of the data. \n\nFor example, packet filtering will block out all traffic using port 53 if you tell it to. Stateful inspection on the other hand will analyze everything and recognize that you sent a request on port 53 and that the outside device is responding to you, in which case it would make an exception for the incoming traffic. Of course pretty much all of that would be customized by the IT department based on the needs of the business. All in all, you can typically set rules based on the source/destination address, port number, and protocol being used.\n\n",
"A firewall is like a border patrol agent that lets good people (whitelisted programs) through and denies bad people entry.",
"A computer has 65,535 listening-tubes that it can listen with. Each listening tube connects to a different program, if the program for that tube has been installed. So, if you want to talk to the program that gives cake recipes, you just need to talk to the right tube.\n\nNow, you might want anyone to be able to get cake recipes, cause your cake recipes are the best. But you don't want anyone to be able to talk to your diary program, because that's super secret and only for you and not even your sister cause she's stupid.\n\nAlso, you might have other programs that are mostly alright, but they've got problems with their head where if you say just the right words, they go mad and give you all their money or something. No-one knows what the right words are but they all have them. Yours might be \"carrot shoes\" or \"green sequin\". And the program you have for your cake recipes might have some words like \"hoozabalooza\" where if anyone says the words the program goes mad and starts making cake for everyone and your oven is on 28 or 29 hours a day and your house catches fire and the firemen can't rescue you because there are raisins everywhere.\n\nSo you've got some things where you don't want strangers talking with your computer's listening tubes. You need a way to shut this tubes so they aren't listening any more. And that's what a firewall is. It's something that you put around the outside of your computer, that slides a metal gate over the tubes and people outside can't speak through them even if they shout.\n\nYou can't see it around your computer. It's not on the outside. It's outside the brain of the computer but inside the case. But if you put your ear around the back of the computer where the fan is and listen really really hard, you can hear a noise. That's the sound of all the people on Twitter who are angry because they're shouting at your computer's tubes and they can't be heard, because of the firewall. Fuck 'em. They're a bunch of cunts. Now, do you want a bedtime story?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
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